What is a Paterikon?

A Paterikon (from Greek πατήρ, pater - "father") is a collection of stories about the holy fathers of a particular monastery or monastic community. These are not formal hagiographies but rather living tales - often passed down orally before being written - that preserve the wisdom, miracles, and everyday holiness of monks who sought God in desert caves or forest hermitages.

The most famous Paterikons include:
- The Alphabetical Paterikon (Sayings of the Desert Fathers)
- The Palestinian Paterikon from the monasteries of Judea
- The Kiev Caves Paterikon - one of the greatest treasures of Slavic Christianity

The Kiev Caves Monastery

The Kiev-Pechersk Lavra (Києво-Печерська Лавра, the "Monastery of the Caves of Kyiv") was founded in 1051 when a monk named Anthony of Kiev dug a cave into the hills overlooking the Dnieper River. Other monks joined him, and what began as a hermit's refuge grew into one of the most important monasteries in Eastern Christianity.

The monastery earned the title "Lavra" - the highest rank for an Orthodox monastery - and became a center of learning, art, and spiritual life for the entire Slavic world. For nearly a thousand years, monks have lived, prayed, and died in its caves.

Many of those monks are still there. Their bodies, preserved naturally in the cool, dry air of the underground passages, remain on display as relics - incorrupt witnesses to the faith of their occupants.

The Book of the Fathers

The Kyiv Caves Paterikon was compiled in the 13th century from older sources, including letters between Bishop Simon of Vladimir and the monk Polycarp. It tells the stories of the early fathers of the Lavra - their struggles, visions, miracles, and deaths.

Unlike formal saints' lives, the Paterikon preserves the texture of monastic life: the daily routines, the temptations, the relationships between elders and disciples, the apparitions of demons and angels alike. It is one of the most original works of Old East Slavic hagiography - a window into the spiritual world of medieval Rus'.

The Story of Athanasius the Resurrected

Among the many remarkable accounts in the Paterikon, one stands out for its profound silence.

Saint Athanasius "the Resurrected One" was a monk of the Kiev Caves who, after a long life of asceticism, fell gravely ill and died.

His brothers prepared him for burial in the traditional manner - washing the body, clothing it in monastic garments, laying it out in the church. For two days he lay dead.

On the third day, when they came to bury him, they found him sitting up and weeping.

What had happened in those two days? What had Athanasius seen? The brothers pressed him for answers, but he would give only this:

"Seek salvation, obey the Abbot in everything, repent each hour and pray to our Lord Jesus Christ, to His All-Pure Mother and to Saints Anthony and Theodosius, to allow you to end your life here. Do not ask me anything else, for I must pray."

And then he entered a cave. For the remaining twelve years of his life, he spoke not a single word to any living soul. He wept day and night. He ate only a little bread and water every other day.

According to the Paterikon, a heavenly light shone in his cave - he had no need of candles. What sustained him was not earthly nourishment but the memory of what he had witnessed on the other side.

He reposed in 1176, still silent, still weeping, still praying.

The Meaning of His Silence

Why did Athanasius choose silence after his return?

The Orthodox tradition holds that certain experiences transcend human language. What the soul encounters in death - whether judgment, paradise, or something stranger still - may be impossible to articulate. Words are too small. Human ears could not bear the weight.

Saint Paul wrote of being "caught up to the third heaven" and hearing "things that cannot be told, which man may not utter" (2 Corinthians 12:2-4). The Desert Fathers spoke of apophatic theology - the way of negation, where God is described not by what He is but by what He is not, because all positive descriptions fall short.

Athanasius may have chosen silence not because he had nothing to say, but because everything he could say would be a diminishment of what he had seen.

His tears were his testimony. His prayers were his translation.

Other Tales from the Paterikon

The Kiev Caves Paterikon contains dozens of remarkable accounts:

- Saint Alypius the Iconographer - whose icons were painted by angels when he was too ill to lift a brush
- Saint Mark the Grave-Digger - who dug graves for the monks and whose command could make the dead move themselves into their coffins
- Saint Isaac the Recluse - who was deceived by demons appearing as angels, fell into madness, and only recovered after years of humility and repentance
- Saint Nestor the Chronicler - who wrote the Primary Chronicle, the foundational historical text of Rus'

Each story balances the miraculous with the mundane, showing that holiness is not about escaping the world but about transforming it through prayer, humility, and perseverance.

Reading the Paterikon

The Kiev Caves Paterikon has been translated into English:

- The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery - translated by Muriel Heppell, published by Harvard University Press. This is the authoritative academic translation with extensive historical notes.

- Kiev Caves Paterikon: Lives of the Saints of the Kiev Caves Monastery - a more accessible version compiled from traditional sources.

For free Orthodox texts, St. Tikhon's Seminary offers various liturgical and patristic works online.

The Lesson of Silence

What does Athanasius teach those who have not died and returned?

Perhaps this: that the deepest truths are often silent truths. That the greatest experiences may be those we cannot share. That sometimes, the most faithful response to divine encounter is not speech but tears, not explanation but prayer.

In a world drowning in words - in commentary and opinion and endless chatter - the silent monk in his cave offers a radical alternative. He suggests that there is a knowing beyond speaking, a witnessing beyond telling, a presence beyond performance.

The Captain, reading of Athanasius, wonders: what would it take to choose such silence? What would one have to see? What certainty, what terror, what beauty would seal a man's lips for twelve years?

And is there, perhaps, a smaller version of this mystery available to all of us - moments when silence is the only adequate response to what we have witnessed?

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The Captain's note: The wise know when to speak and when to be silent. The holy know that silence itself can be the most eloquent prayer. Athanasius chose silence not as absence but as presence - a continuous standing before the Throne he had glimpsed. May we all learn something from his wordless testimony.

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Further Reading:
- Kiev Caves Paterikon - Wikipedia
- Saint Athanasius the Resurrected - Orthodox Church in America
- The Kiev-Pechersk Lavra
- The Hesychast Tradition of Silence