Day of the Venerable Nestor the Chronicler (09/11)

The Monk Nestor the Chronicler was born in the 50s of the 11th century in Kyiv. As a young man, he came to St. Theodosius and became a novice. Venerable Nestor was tonsured by the successor of Venerable Theodosius, Abbot Stephen. Under him, he was initiated into a hierodeacon. His high spiritual life is evidenced by the fact that he, along with other venerable fathers, participated in the expulsion of the reclusive demon from Nikita (later the Novgorod saint, memory of January 31), who was carried away by Jewish wisdom.

The Monk Nestor deeply valued true knowledge combined with humility and repentance. In the monastery, the Monk Nestor carried the obedience of the chronicler. In the 80s of the 11th century, he wrote a «Reading about the life and destruction of the blessed passion-bearers Boris and Gleb» in connection with the transfer of their holy relics to Vyshgorod in 1072, and also compiled the life of St. Theodosius of Pechersk.

The main feat of the life of St. Nestor was the compilation of the « Tale of Bygone Years» by 1112-1113. An unusually wide range of sources (preceding Russian chronicle vaults and legends, monastic records, Byzantine, various historical collections, stories of the elder boyar Jan Vyshatich, traders, warriors, travelers), understood from a single, strictly church point of view, allowed the Monk Nestor to write the history of Rus' as an integral part of world history, the history of the salvation of the human race.

Inok the patriot sets out the history of the Russian Church in the main moments of its historical formation. He talks about the first mention of the Russian people in church sources — in 866, under the Holy Patriarch Photius of Constantinople; tells about the creation of a Slavic charter by Saints Cyril and Methodius, Equal-to-the-Apostles, about the Baptism of Saint Olga Equal-to-the-Apostles in Constantinople.

The chronicle of St. Nestor preserves the story about the first Orthodox church in Kyiv (945), about the confessional feat of the holy Varangian martyrs (983), about the «test of ver» by St. Vladimir Equal to the Apostles (986) and the Baptism of Rus' (988). We owe the first Russian church historian information about the first metropolitans of the Russian Church, about the emergence of the Pechersk monastery, about its founders and ascetics.

The time of St. Nestor was not easy for the Russian land and the Russian Church. Rus' was tormented by princely civil strife, steppe nomadic Polovtsians ravaged cities and villages with predatory raids, stole Russian people into slavery, and burned churches and monasteries. The Monk Nestor was an eyewitness to the defeat of the Pechersk monastery in 1096. The chronicle provides a theological understanding of history. Spiritual depth, historical fidelity and patriotism «Tales of bygone years» place it among the highest creations of world writing.

The Monk Nestor died around 1114, bequeathing to the Pechersk monk chroniclers the continuation of his work. His successors in the chronicle were Hegumen Sylvester, who gave a modern look to «The Tale of Bygone Years», Hegumen Moses Vydubitsky, who extended it until 1200, and finally, Hegumen Lawrence, who in 1377 wrote the oldest of the lists that preserved the «Tale» of St. Nestor (« Laurentian Chronicle»).

St. Nestor is buried in the Near Caves of St. Anthony of Pechersk.

367