Our Holy Father Prochorus the Orach-Eater.

Commemorated February 10 in the Orthodox Christian Menaion

From the Prologue

A wonder-worker of the Monastery of the Caves in Kiev, he w named the Orach-eater because the whole time he lived in t monastery, he never tasted bread but fed himself on orach prepared according to his own particular method as a sort of bread When he gave someone some of this bread with his blessing, it w as sweet as honey, but if anyone stole some, it was as bitter wormwood.

At one time, when there was a dearth of salt in Russia, Prochorus distributed ashes to the people for salt. The ashes that distributed with his blessing became salt; ashes, however, anyone took for himself remained ordinary ashes. Prince Svyatopol ordered that all the ashes from Prochorus' cell be brought to t court without his permission, let alone his blessing. When the ash were brought there, it was obvious to everyone that they were ash and not salt. Then Prochorus told all the people who came to him salt to go to the prince's court, and, when the prince threw the ash away, to take them and use them as salt. This they did, and the ash again became salt. The prince himself, learning of this, was filled with a deep respect and love for him and, when Prochorus died in 1107, placed him with his own hands in a grave near the great Russian Saints, Antony and Theodorius.

From The Prologue From Ochrid by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich
©1985 Lazarica Press, Birmingham UK