Venerable Matthew the Clairvoyant of the Kiev Caves

Venerable Matthew the Clairvoyant, a monk of the Kiev Caves Monastery, labored in the second half of the eleventh century under the abbots Theodosius, Stephen, and Nikon of the Caves, and reposed around 1088. The Lord granted him a rare spiritual gift — clairvoyance, enabling him to see the unseen warfare of demons against the brethren. According to the Kiev Caves Patericon, during a church service he once saw a demon in the guise of a Pole scattering flowers about the church: those monks touched by a flower grew languid in soul and left before the service ended. On another occasion he saw a crowd of demons riding a donkey into the monastery, seeking out a negligent monk named Michael, and warned the brethren. A third time, at matins, he perceived a demon occupying the abbot's place, thereby exposing the abbot's delay in coming to the service. Through these revelations St. Matthew turned the brethren away from actions harmful to the soul and strengthened them in watchfulness. His relics rest in the Near (Anthony's) Caves of the Kiev Caves Lavra. The Church commemorates him on October 5/18 and in the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of the Kiev Caves.