The monk of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Agapit is considered the first Russian doctor. Little is known about his life before the monastery. He was a native of Kiev, very devout, and having heard about Elder Anthony and the miracles he performed in the Lavra, he came there and got his hair cut as a monk. This happened during the life of St. Anthony, and thus until 1073.
Agapit was endowed with the gift of healing diseases with prayer and herbal collections. His skills were so great. That seemingly hopeless patients were recovering. At the same time, the saint was very shy, he never left the walls of the monastery and tried to stay away from everything worldly.
When Prince Vladimir Monomakh fell ill, foreign doctors could not help him. Then the prince asked Agapita to send him, but he refused to leave the monastery. The prince was given a special infusion and he recovered. Monomakh wanted to give a monk richly, but he from the gifts
refused. Monomachus himself came to the monastery, brought gold and silver. In order not to put the prince (and himself) in an awkward position, Agapit took the gift, but as soon as he left the room, he immediately left it, and he fled.
Shortly before his death, the elder fell ill. A longtime rival, an Armenian doctor, predicted that he would not live for 3 days. The elder said that the Lord gave him a period of 3 months. By then Agapit was so weak that he could not get out of bed. The Armenian doctor laughed and noticed that if the elder lasted 3 months, he would accept Orthodoxy. There came a novice with the news that they had brought a sick man. In front of the astonished Armenian, Agapit got up and began to heal the sick man.
He died, as predicted, after 3 months, and the Armenian doctor converted to Orthodoxy and became a monk.
The relics of Agapita rest in the Lavra, in the front caves. Local veneration of the elder began in the 13th century, and the general church — in the 18th.
Remembrance days
March 20 (transitional) – Council of all the Kiev-Pechersk Reverend Fathers
June 14
October 11 – Cathedral of the Kiev-Pechersk Monks, in the Near Caves
The Holy Land Charitable Foundation
Lives of Saints
