Did you know that:

The Near and Far Caves of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra were created and used over the centuries as an underground necropolis. No cells for the monks have been found in the cave labyrinths. Exceptions are the cell for solitary prayer in the Varangian Caves (the so-called hesychaster cell), built not earlier than the 17th century, and a two-chamber cell in the Far Caves, which appeared only at the beginning of the 18th century according to the cave plans.

All underground volumes in the Lavra caves can be divided into three categories: cave corridors that appeared during the development of the labyrinths; cave churches and burial structures.

There are several types of the burial structures: bone chamber; crypt (burial chamber with one, two, three or four couches); loculus (a burial niche dug in the cave soil to the length of the human body, often perpendicular to the cave corridor, less often - along the cave corridor); arcosolium (an arched recess along the cave corridors). Reliquaries with the remains of the Pechersk Saints are now placed in arcosolium.  

#Печерські_цікавинки

#Kyiv-Pechersk_curiosities

Picture captions:

1. Corridor in the Near Caves

2. St. Theodosius of Pechersk Church in the Far Caves

3. A half-destroyed bone chamber in St. Nestor branch of the Near Caves

4. Axonometric drawing of the crypt with two couches in St. Nestor branch of the Near Caves

5. Loculus