Patericon (Ukrainian: pateryk). A collection of edifying tales, anecdotes, and apothegms about saints, the Church Fathers, and prominent monks. Patericons originated in the Byzantine Empire in the 4th century. In the 11th and 12th centuries Church Slavonic translations of the so-called Egyptian, Sinaitic, Roman, Jerusalem, and Skete patericons spread from Bulgaria and Moravia into Kyivan Rus’. The Kyivan Cave Patericon was modeled on the translations.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]