14/27 October: Saint Nikola Sviatosha of the Kiev-Caves Monastery
Saint Nikola was born Sviatoslav (from which he received the diminutive Sviatosha), the eldest son of Prince Davyd Sviatoslavich, at the end of the 11th century. He was the great-grandson of Saint Yaroslav the Wise. The 11th and 12th centuries were the time of much fighting among the Rurikids over the various principalities of the Kievan Rus. At one of the many councils that the Rurikid princes held to try to resolve their disputes, Nikola’s father received the principality of Chernigov, modern-day Ukraine (approximately 150 km from Kiev, 500 km from Smolensk, and 1000 km from Novgorod, Russia - the latter two are both principalities where Prince Davyd ruled at one time or another).
When Nikola became of age, he received the principality of Lutsk - modern-day Ukraine, 500 km from Chernigov - but after only a few years, he lost that city to rivals and returned to his father in Chernigov, where he lived in relative peace for seven or eight years.
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