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Answer:
Dr. Alexander Roman
alex@unicorne.org
The icon you saw was the icon of All Saints
of the Kyivan Caves Lavra that is published by the Lavra today and is
widely venerated throughout Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, and a copy of
which is shown here.
The Venerable Fathers of the Kyivan Caves wore black robes and were called
that by the local populace, "Black Robes," much like the early Jesuit
missionaries were called this by North America's Native peoples.
This choir of Saints is, in fact, the largest urban saintly choir anywhere
in the world and although that icon depicts about 120 Venerable Fathers
buried in the Kyivan Caves, a number of others have been, in recent years,
discovered underground, having had their Arks (Saints' reliquary shrines)
covered over by soil as a result of earthquakes over the centuries.
The most recent listing of the Fathers can be found under the "Ukrainian
Saints" section on this website.
The icon is divided into two groupings, the Saints of the "Caves of St
Anthony" (on the left) and those of the "Caves of St Theodosius" (on the
right).
The former Caves have 79+ Venerable Fathers and the latter 46+ Saints. At
the lower centre is St Volodymyr the Great a portion of whose relics are
in the Caves as well. Above him is the great Cathedral of All Saints,
truly a most holy spot!
Above the Cathedral are angels holding the miraculous Icon of the Kyivan
Caves Dormition which is hung above the Royal Iconostasis Doors on ropes
and is lowered for the veneration of the faithful on those ropes - just as
the miraculous icon of Pochaiv in western Ukraine is as well. This
practice is a peculiarity of the Kyivan Church alone.
To the right and left of the icon are two caves with Skull-Relics in them.
These are the 61 Myrrh-bearing and miraculous skulls of unknown Saints
that are enshrined in the Lavra.
Among the Venerable Fathers of the Kyivan Caves are 12 Saints who are the
original Greek architects and builders of the Monastery.
There are also three women saints enshrined among the Venerable Fathers,
St Juliana, a 16 year-old Princess of Olshansk, St Theodora (Bohdanna) of
the Carpathians, and St Dosithea, a woman who kept her gender a secret (as
per long-standing Eastern monastic tradition) and reached the rank of
Ihumen!
It was only discovered that the Ihumen was a woman after her death. It was
this St "Dositheus" that St Seraphim of Sarov visited and from whom he
received a blessing to go to Sarov!
Many sainted bishops and missionaries who received the tonsure at the
Kyivan Caves Lavra and who, by right, belong to this Choir of Saints, are
buried elsewhere, but their memory is venerated there to be sure. All in
all, the entire group of Kyivan Caves Saints, monks, hierarchs, martyrs
and missionaries is 250+ including the Myrrhbearing Skulls and other
Saints buried there, including the relics of one of the Bethlehem children
martyred by King Herod himself . . .
Recently, the Lavra's choir of Saints was increased with the glorification
of the Metropolitan of Kyiv and Archimandrite of the Lavra, St Peter
Mohyla, that of St Theophilus the fool for Christ's Sake, St Parthenius,
St Alexius of the Holosiyivsky Skete and the enshrinement in the Caves of
the relics of the Protomartyr of the Soviet Yoke, St Volodymyr,
Metropolitan of Kyiv, who was shot by the Bolsheviks against one of the
monastery walls on February 7, 1918. The Choir of the New Martyrs of the
Kyivan Caves includes St Theodosius the Archimandrite with over 30
Venerable Martyrs.
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