Saint Procopius of Sazava

Procopius of Sazava was a Bohemian priest, hermit, and monastic founder who labored to spread the Christian faith among the Czech people in the early eleventh century. He is best known as the founder and first abbot of the monastery on the River Sazava, dedicated to Saint John the Forerunner, and is commemorated in the Orthodox Church on September 16. He reposed in 1053.

According to tradition, Procopius was born around 970 in the village of Chotoun, in Central Bohemia near Kourim. He studied and was ordained to the priesthood, and accounts relate that he was married and had a son before withdrawing from secular life. He later embraced the monastic life and eventually retired as a hermit to a cave on the banks of the Sazava River.

A community of hermits gathered around Procopius, and with the support of the Duke of Bohemia this community was established as a monastery in the early 1030s, with Procopius as its first abbot. He guided the community for roughly two decades until his death. The monastery he founded became a notable center of Slavonic monastic life, where, by tradition, the divine services were celebrated in Old Church Slavonic rather than in Latin.