OUR VENERABLE FATHER NESTOR THE CHRONICLER

(27 OCTOBER/9 NOVEMBER)

The events which are not written down can be forgotten or obscured in the process of time unless it is a sacred event preserved by the Holy Spirit in the Conscience of the Church. Thus, Moses, by Divine guidance, recorded a history of the creation and lives of the first people for us. The Lord Who has caused his wonders to be remembered (Ps. 110, 4) often raises up chroniclers, so that following generations may read of the spirit of preceding ages and learn and benefit from that.

St Nestor was a chronicler who, while gathering a history of the lands of Rus’, also recorded the history of monasticism in Rus’ and the lives of early saints who enlightened the land.

At the time when St Anthony was struggling in the solitude of the cave and St Theodosius was building the monastery, the seventeen-year-old Nestor came to them, seeking for an ascetic life. Not being a monk yet, Nestor learned monastic Virtues: spiritual and bodily purity, deep humility, absolute obedience, strict fasting, voluntary poverty, constant prayer, wakeful vigilance and other monastic struggles by means of which he sought to follow Sts Anthony and Theodosius. The undefiled youth lovingly accepted every command from these two holy monks, spiritually nourishing himself like a child at a mother’s breast.

St Nestor assures us in his writings that he loved these two saints not in word or talk but in deed and in truth (1 Jn. 3, 18).

St Nestor was not tonsured until after the righteous repose of the great fathers. Though he had long before ‘died to the world,’ he removed himself still further from it by receiving tonsure from Stephen the Abbot. With time, Fr Stephen elevated St Nestor to the rank of deacon.

Bearing the double cross of both monasticism and the diaconate, St Nestor redoubled his struggles always remembering the sufferings of our Saviour. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth (Jn. 4, 24).

Nestor chose the struggle of complete humility as a means of defeating his bodily passions — anger and malice. Up till his end, he humbled and debased himself before everyone.

When, by God’s inspiration, the brethren resolved to uncover the relics of St Theodosius and to carry them over to the church, St Nestor led in the task. He worked the whole night, with faith and fervent prayer, digging up the grave of the great enlightener. St Nestor carried out the honourable relics and placed them before the cave where he witnessed the multitude of healings and miracles.

St Nestor himself lived to quite an old age never ceasing his work on chronicle writing. The saint reposed in peace and God glorified him by keeping his sacred relics incorrupt.

By the prayers of this holy writer, may our names be found written in the book of life of God’s Lamb, to Who, with the Father and the Life-creating Spirit, be all glory, honour, and worship, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen!