Prochorus was a monk of the Kiev Caves monastery, remembered above all for two famine-time wonders: he made edible bread from the bitter wild plant known as pigweed or goosefoot (orach), and he turned ashes into salt during a shortage. From the first of these he received the byname "the Pigweed-Eater" (also rendered "Goosefoot" or "Lebednik"). By tradition a native of Smolensk, he entered the monastery under the igumen John, who governed the community from 1089 to 1103. He is commemorated on February 10.
According to his life, Prochorus practiced strict temperance and ate pigweed in place of bread. Each summer he gathered the plant and prepared from it enough bread to last him a whole year, and God transformed the usual bitterness of the pigweed into sweetness. When a famine threatened the land, he gathered the plant more zealously and distributed his bread to the hungry, and it was said to taste as though made from fine wheat. The tradition holds that only the bread given with his blessing was wholesome, pure, and light in appearance; the same plant prepared by others, or taken without his blessing, remained bitter and unfit to eat.
A second wonder is attached to a shortage of salt at Kiev. Prochorus gathered ashes from the monastery cells and distributed them to the needy, and through his prayers the ashes became salt. This free distribution angered those who hoped to profit from the scarcity, and Prince Svyatopolk confiscated the supply; but when it was carried to the prince's court it was seen to be only ordinary ashes. After the prince discarded it, Prochorus blessed the people to gather it, and it was again changed into salt. The synaxarion relates that this miracle reformed the prince, who afterward held the saint in high esteem.
When Prochorus was dying, Prince Svyatopolk, though engaged in war, left his army to come and receive the saint's blessing, and is said to have carried the body to the Near Caves and buried him there himself. Prochorus reposed in the year 1107. His relics rest in the Near (Antoniev) Caves of the Kiev Caves monastery.
