Feast Day: September 25th
The Life of Saint Dosithea: Soon she became known in the region as Dositheos the Recluse, and many came to her for counsel and consolation, which she offered through a small window in a cave, not wanting anyone to see her beardless face…
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Prayers
Saint Dosithea Pray to God for us.
When she was two years old, the young Saint Dosithea insisted to stay at the Monastery of the Ascension where her grandmother was. Here she grew up in the love of the Monastic life, Asceticism and Prayer. When she was nine years old, her parents asked she return to be properly educated in the world. She continued to live the Monastic life at home and she would gather beggars in her home to feed them, and she often dressed like a beggar herself and would seclude herself in her room when her parents had guests over for lavish parties. Her parents and sister wished she would live according to her noble high status, and when she was fifteen years old they told her she should marry. So Saint Dosithea secretly left her family and went back to the Monastery, seeing her aged grandmother there, she realised her family would soon come to find her, so she bought peasant clothing, cut off her hair, and called herself the serf Dositheos.




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Saint Dosithea spent three years at Saint Sergius Lavra pretending she was a male, and performed all the duties of a young man. This Monastery was forty kilometers from the other Monastery of the Ascension. One day as Saint Dosithea was lighting the Vigil Lamps, her mother and sister came to the Monastery to Pray, and her sister recognised her. She immediately returned to her Cell, gathered her belongings and left the Monastery while her mother and sister were enquiring about the Monk who was lighting the Vigil Lamps.
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Saint Dosithea lived as a Hermit in a cave near the Kitayev Skete, as she could not join the Kiev Caves Lavra as she did not offer proper documentation. She ate bread, water and a few wild plants. Soon she became known in the area as Dositheos the Recluse, and many people came to her for counsel and consolation. She would talk to people through a small window in a cave, so that no one would notice her beardless face.


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One day the young Saint Seraphim of Sarov, while visiting the Holy Places of Kiev, was advised to visit the Hermit Dositheos. Saint Seraphim opened up his heart and received the answer from Saint Dosithea that he had been Praying about:
“Go, child of God, to the Monastery of Sarov and stay there. That place will be to you for Salvation. With God’s help, there you will finish your human wanderings on Earth. Only, struggle to acquire the unceasing remembrance of God. Continuously call upon His Name, saying: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner!’ Let all of your attention and Ascetic labour be turned towards this activity. While you are walking, when you are resting or are standing in Church, have this unceasing Prayer on your lips and in your heart. You will find rest in it and will acquire Spiritual and bodily purity. Then the Holy Spirit will abide in you. And you will lead your life in all piety and purity. In Sarov, the Superior, Pachomios, leads a God-pleasing life. He follows in the footsteps of our own Anthony and Theodosios.”








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Another time Saint Dosithea was visited by her sister, asking what had become of her missing sister. Saint Dosithea did not reveal her identity but rather replied that she should not look for her any longer as she had gone into hiding to serve God.


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Some time later she went to live in the Far Caves of the Kiev Caves Lavra, and remained here for four years. However, when she was chosen to be Ordained a Deacon, she feigned madness and lived like a Fool-for-Christ. She then secluded herself in a Cell, and the Monk Theophan was her Disciple. One day she told Monk Theophan to distribute incense among the faithful. Not long after an epidemic of the plague broke out, with great casulties, however the people who had Censed their house with Saint Dosithea’s incense remained immune to the plague.
“Take this and cense your houses very thoroughly. A great misfortune is soon coming. People will fall dead in the streets like insects. But do not despair! Do not become disheartened! Pray! Pray!”






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On the evening of her Repose, Saint Dosithea left her Cell and went around the Kitaev Hermiatge, leaning on her cane, making a full prostration to each of the Monks, and with tears she said:
“Forgive me! In the Name of God, forgive me! I have offended you many times with my words, actions and thoughts.”
She then returned to her Cell, Chanted throughout the night, and approached the Gates of Eternity in Prayer. In the Morning the Monk Theophan did not receive an answer when he knocked on her Cell. Informing the other Monks, they opened the Cell and found Saint Dosithea kneeling in Prayer before the Icon and her lit Vigil Lamp. In her left had was a piece of paper saying:
“My body is ready for burial. I beseech you, my brothers, to bury it according to custom, but without tampering with it.”
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“In the year 1776, 25 September, Dositheos reposed.”










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Not long after her Blessed Repose, the sister of Saint Dosithea came to Kiev on a pilgrimage. When she learned the Ascetic she had spoken to had reposed, she asked details about the life of this Ascetic. She then saw a portrait and concluded that Dositheos the Hermit of Kiev was in fact her sister.