Nestor the Chronicler

• 1. Introduction

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  Nestor the Chronicler is also known as Nestor the Hagiographer, and the choice between those names reflects a genuine historical dispute. Around 1056, he was born in Kievan Rus'. He was a monk at the Monastery of the Caves in Kiev. He wrote two hagiographies that scholars accept as definitively his. A third text, far larger and more influential, has also been attributed to him. Whether that attribution holds is a question historians have argued about for a very long time.

• 2. The Two Hagiographies

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  In 1073, Nestor was commissioned along with two other monks to find the relics of St. Theodosius of Kiev, a mission he fulfilled successfully. A Kontakion written in his honor later described him as a disciple of Theodosius and the first eyewitness of his relics. In the 1080s, Nestor wrote the Life of the Venerable Theodosius of the Kiev Caves.

  The second confirmed work is the Account about the Life and Martyrdom of the Blessed Passion Bearers Boris and Gleb. When exactly Nestor wrote it remains heavily disputed; scholars place it somewhere in the late eleventh or early twelfth century. The oldest surviving manuscript is the fourteenth-century Silvestrovskij sbornik. The Primary Chronicle, compiled around 1113, stands in a different relation to his name.

• 3. A Disputed Chronicle

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  The Primary Chronicle is also known as the Tale of Bygone Years. It is the most revered historical record of medieval Kievan Rus'. Traditional historiography named Nestor as its author, and that attribution gave rise to his nickname "the Chronicler." Many modern scholars now doubt that he wrote it. The disagreement runs deep. Some historians have adopted "the Hagiographer" as an alternative, anchoring his identity to the confirmed works rather than the disputed one. Nestor died around 1114.

• 4. Saint of the Near Caves

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  The Eastern Orthodox Church canonized him by including his name in the Synaxis of all Venerable Fathers of the Kiev Caves. He was buried in the Near Caves, and his body is among the relics preserved in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. His feast day falls on the 27th of October. On that day he is commemorated alongside Nestor of Thessaloniki and Nestor of the Far Kiev Caves.

  The 28th of September brings the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of the Kiev Near Caves, a second annual commemoration. The Second Sunday of Great Lent gathers all the Venerable Fathers of the Kiev Caves in a moveable feast. Other Orthodox communities observe him on the 25th of May and the 15th of July as well.

  The feast-day Troparion in Tone 4 praises him for recording the deeds of the princes of Rus'. It also celebrates the lives of the holy fathers of the Caves. The same hymn closes with a petition: that all who honor Nestor might have their own names written in the Book of Life.