A servant of the holy Prince Boris, taken captive to Poland, who withstood the lust and threats of a noblewoman who would have made him her husband, suffering for his chastity; freed at last, he became a monk of the Kiev Caves.
Feast Day
July 26
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Our Venerable Father Moses the Hungarian, Confessor of the Kiev Caves
Life
Moses the Hungarian was an eleventh-century monastic of the Kiev Caves Monastery, remembered for withstanding the demands of a wealthy Polish noblewoman who sought to make him her husband, suffering bodily torment rather than abandon his vow of chastity. Hungarian by birth, he came from Transylvania, and according to the synaxarion entered the service of the holy Prince Boris of Kiev together with his brothers George and Ephraim.
After the murder of Prince Boris in 1015 and his own captivity in Poland, Moses was at last freed and lived out his days as a monk of the Kiev Caves, where he was buried in the Near Caves. His memory is kept on July 26, and he came to be venerated as a helper against fleshly temptation. He is distinct from Moses the Wonderworker of the Kiev Caves, commemorated on July 28.
Timeline 4 moments
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c. 990-995Birth in HungaryMoses was born in the Kingdom of Hungary, in Transylvania, during the period when the region was passing from paganism to Christianity.
1015The murder of Prince BorisMoses and his brothers George and Ephraim had entered the service of Prince Boris. When Boris was killed in 1015 on the Alta River, his brother George perished with him, while Moses escaped and hid himself at Kiev with Predislava, the sister of Prince Yaroslav.
1018Captivity in PolandWhen the Polish king Boleslav captured Kiev in 1018, Moses, along with others, was taken to Poland as a prisoner.
c. 1043Repose at the Kiev CavesAfter his release Moses came to the Kiev Caves Monastery, where he pursued the ascetic life for about ten years before reposing around 1043. He was buried in the Near Caves.
Contributions & Legacy
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Captivity and Trial of Chastity
By the accounts handed down in his life, Moses was a tall and handsome man, and during his captivity he attracted the attention of a wealthy Polish widow who was taken with him and wished to make him her husband. She ransomed him from captivity despite his refusal, but he firmly rejected her advances, declaring that he would become a monk.
The synaxarion relates that, when he persisted in his refusal, the widow had him severely beaten with iron rods until the ground was soaked with his blood, and ordered that he be struck daily; the accounts further state that he was emasculated for the sake of his purity. According to these accounts an Athonite hieromonk tonsured him as a monk during his captivity. After the death of Boleslav and a rebellion in Poland, the widow perished and Moses was freed.
Monastic Life and Legacy
Having recovered from his wounds, Moses arrived at the Kiev Caves Monastery bearing, in the words of his tradition, the wounds of a martyr; tradition holds that he carried a staff without which he could not walk because of the injuries he had received. There he struggled in asceticism for about ten years until his repose.
He is commemorated among the Fathers of the Kiev Caves, and his relics rest in the Near (Antoniev) Caves of the Kiev Lavra. By tradition his relics were venerated as a source of help against the temptations of the flesh; among those said to have sought his intercession in this struggle was Saint John the Much-Suffering of the Caves.
Family
Moses is numbered among three brothers of Hungarian origin who entered the service of Prince Boris. His brother George died together with Boris in 1015, and his brother Ephraim is venerated as Saint Ephraim of Novy Torg, whose memory is kept on January 28.
