Saint Moses the Hungarian – One of the First Queer Figures in Russian History?

The Life of Saint Moses the Hungarian (Russian: Моисей Угрин, Moisey Ugrin) is one of the most unusual texts in the hagiography of medieval Rus’. A monk of the Kyiv-Pechersk Monastery who was taken captive in Poland, he refused for years to marry a rich and influential woman, was castrated for his refusal, and was later canonized as a model of chastity.

For centuries, this story was read as a tale of the triumph of spirit over flesh. At the beginning of the 20th century, the philosopher Vasily Rozanov saw something else in it: the biography of a man whose nature excluded heterosexual attraction. Later, Western Slavists and gender scholars offered their own interpretations. Each revisited the traditional understanding of the Life in a different way.

How Was Sexuality Understood Then?

The Life cannot be read outside the context of the sexual ethics of medieval Rus’, especially the Kyivan period of the 10th–13th centuries.

The Orthodox Church condemned the extramarital sexual act itself – fornication – rather than focusing on the gender of the participants. As the scholar Eve Levin emphasizes, medieval Rus’ understood sexuality in terms of actions – sin or virtue – rather than identity. The concept of a “homosexual” as a distinct type of person did not exist in Kyivan Rus'.

Of course, this did not mean tolerance in the modern sense. Violations of sexual norms were condemned, but as a rule they did not lead to physical punishment or death. The penalty was repentance and penance, not execution. Compared with England, France, or Spain in the same period, however, the treatment of non-normative sexuality was considerably less severe.

Monastic literary culture developed its own ideal: complete renunciation of carnal passion, be it heterosexual or homosexual. At the intersection of this ascetic ideal and the diversity of human inclinations, the story of Moses the Hungarian unfolds.

Biography of Moses the Hungarian

The main source of information about Moses is a text titled the Kyiv-Pechersk Patericon (Киево-Печерский патерик), compiled in the 1220s based on earlier traditions. Later in the 17th century, the Life was reworked by Bishop Dimitry of Rostov (Russian: Димитрий Ростовский). Both versions describe in detail the physicality, sexual coercion, and physical violence.

Moses came from Hungary (hence the nickname “the Hungarian” — Ugrin, from the Old Russian word for Hungarians). Historians argue about his roots: István Ferincz believes that his family fled the imposition of Latin Christianity, Mikhail Yurasov calls them Subcarpathian Rusyns, and Endre Iglói traces them to descendants of Hungarian warriors. Whatever the case, Moses and his two brothers, Ephraim and George (Russian: Ефрем, Георгий), served at the court of the Kyivan prince Boris.

In 1015, during a civil war, mercenaries of Prince Sviatopolk the Accursed (Russian: Святополк Окаянный) killed Boris on the Alta River. George died trying to shield the prince with his body. Moses was the only survivor of the retinue. He took refuge in Kyiv with Predslava, the sister of Prince Yaroslav the Wise.

But in 1018, the Polish king Bolesław I the Brave captured the city and led away many captives. Chronicles report that Bolesław raped Predslava and made her his concubine — in revenge for her earlier refusal to marry him. Moses also fell into captivity, turning from a courtier into a chained slave.

Captivity in Poland

It is the Polish period that became the center of the Life. The physically strong and handsome Moses attracted the attention of a noble Polish widow (her husband had died in the Kyiv campaign).

In medieval Eastern Europe, widows often gained a unique status: they could independently manage property, unlike married women. This aristocrat owned vast lands and was not dependent on male guardians. The Polish scholar Agnieszka Nogal even calls her “the first Polish feminist.”

The widow ransomed Moses for a huge sum and began to persistently pursue him. For medieval literature, this is a rare plot: a woman openly uses power and money to coerce a male slave into a relationship. She promised him freedom, wealth, and the status of a lawful husband, dressed him in expensive clothes, and tried to act with affection.

Moses responded with a categorical refusal. He invoked the fear of God, tore off his rich clothes, and preferred to starve. Other captives urged him to yield: the widow was beautiful, and marriage was not forbidden by the church. But Moses answered:

“Let all the righteous be saved with their wives, I alone am a sinner and cannot be saved with a wife.”

— Kyiv-Pechersk Patericon. Life of Moses the Hungarian

When persuasion failed, the widow turned to violence. Moses was beaten and starved in the dungeon. Finally, she complained to King Bolesław. The king, who himself had repeatedly resorted to sexual violence, did not understand Moses. To reject wealth for the sake of bodily purity seemed to him madness. Bolesław allowed the widow to do whatever she wanted with the captive, so that other slaves would not follow his example.

At around the same time, Moses was secretly tonsured by a passing Athonite priest. Now his refusal of marriage gained official spiritual justification.

Castration and Return to Kyiv

Realizing that Moses was finally lost to her, the widow flew into a rage. The Life describes the reprisal with frightening naturalism:

“The widow ordered him to be given a hundred blows every day, and then ordered his secret parts to be cut off [castrated], saying: ‘No, I must not spare his manhood! Let others not enjoy his beauty either.’ And Moses lay as if dead, bleeding, barely breathing.”

— Kyiv-Pechersk Patericon. Life of Moses the Hungarian

Paradoxically, this mutilation resolved the conflict. According to Byzantine canons, voluntary self-castration was strictly punished, but people forcibly castrated were considered martyrs. Deprived of his reproductive organs, Moses approached the ideal of monastic dispassion.

King Bolesław the Brave died in 1025, and later a rebellion broke out in Poland. During the unrest, the widow was killed — the Life notes that Moses’ prophecy was thus fulfilled.

Having gained his freedom, Moses reached Kyiv with great difficulty. Because of his wounds, he could walk only by leaning on a staff. He lived in the Kyiv-Pechersk Monastery for about ten years.

In the monastery, Moses acquired a special status: he was believed to have received power over the sexual temptations of other monks. The Patericon relates how one of the brethren asked him for help in the struggle against carnal passion. Moses struck him with his staff — “and immediately his members went numb, and from then on there was no temptation for this brother.”

Moses died around 1043. His relics began to be venerated as miraculous. For example, another famous monk, John the Long-Suffering (Russian: Иоанн Многострадальный), struggled with sexual obsessions for thirty years (he even buried himself alive in the ground), but received deliverance only after praying at Moses’ relics. Thus the monastic community gained an ideal intercessor.

The veneration of Moses began almost immediately after his death and was officially established in the 17th century. For believers, he became the main helper in the struggle against impure thoughts.

Vasily Rozanov: The Theory of the “Third Sex”

Until the 20th century, the life of Moses was read in an orthodox manner: as an example of the victory of the Christian will over carnal temptation. A radical revision was proposed by the philosopher Vasily Rozanov.

In 1911, he published People of the Moonlight (Люди лунного света) — an unusually frank treatise for its time (especially for Russia) on same-sex love, the “third sex,” and their connection with Christianity. Rozanov defended the traditional family and procreation, but at the same time criticized monastic celibacy and considered same-sex love natural for a certain category of people.

Relying on the ideas of European sexologists from the beginning of the century, Rozanov used the concept of the “third sex.” He called such individuals “people of the moonlight” and believed that homosexuality throughout history was often hidden behind religious celibacy.

Initial Diagnosis

At first, Rozanov applied this theory to Moses the Hungarian. The philosopher did not see his act as a religious feat. According to Rozanov, Moses did not struggle with attraction to a woman — the attraction simply did not exist.

Rozanov asked: why did a healthy young man prefer torture and castration to wealth and freedom? And he answered himself: because contact with a woman was physiologically unbearable for him.

“An invincible disgust — is the same as the actus sodomiticus [homosexual act] for us normal people… For to them, our sexual intercourse is exactly ‘sodom,’ ‘abomination,’ ‘impossible.’”

— Vasily Rozanov. People of the Moonlight

For Rozanov, the story of Moses became the key to understanding all of monasticism. He wrote that this story “should be engraved on copper and nailed to the gates of all monasteries.” The philosopher considered monastic celibacy not a victory of the will, but a social refuge for those who by their nature could not enter into a traditional marriage.

Abandonment of the Initial Diagnosis

Interestingly, in the same book Rozanov published a letter from an anonymous critic and unexpectedly agreed with him (after all, this is typical of Rozanov, who could hold several opposing views on one issue).

The anonymous author wrote that Moses’ resistance is a normal male reaction to aggression. A man does not tolerate a woman taking the initiative by force. The more she presses, the stronger the resistance. The issue is not physiological inability, but wounded pride. The anonymous author gave a clear example: if Rozanov himself had been grabbed on the street by a woman demanding intimacy and beating him with an umbrella, he too would have preferred to run to the police station rather than to her bedroom.

Rozanov replied that he deeply agreed with this logic and was glad to relieve Moses of “suspicions of abnormality.” The philosopher shifted all the blame onto the author of the Life: allegedly, the author turned natural male resistance into a “Uranian [homosexual] profession of hostility toward femininity in general.”

Simon Karlinsky: Rebellion Against the Gender Role

The American scholar Simon Karlinsky viewed the story of Moses in the context of a hidden homoerotic tradition in Russian culture. He noted that the text of the Life is permeated with a hostility toward women and sexuality typical of monks.

Karlinsky considered Rozanov’s method speculative, but appreciated the very raising of the question. For him, Moses is an example of a severe conflict between a person and his imposed social role.

As a disenfranchised slave, Moses reclaims his free will through a complete refusal to participate in marriage and procreation. According to Karlinsky, the castration was the mistress’s revenge for the fact that Moses preferred male company and rejected traditional marriage.

Eve Levin: The Ascetic Ideal

The scholar Eve Levin offers a more cautious approach, warning against overly modern interpretations. Within medieval religious thought, it is not a person’s psychological “nature” that is important, but his actions. For Orthodox theology, Moses’ refusal is primarily a manifestation of spiritual will and grace.

However, Levin acknowledges the important social function of monasteries. They served as a legal refuge for people who for various reasons could not or did not want to marry. The fate of Moses perfectly demonstrates how this social niche worked.

Nick Mayhew: Constructing a New Masculinity

The contemporary scholar Nick Mayhew, in his article Eunuchs and Ascetic Masculinity in Kievan Rus, analyzes the Life from the perspective of gender history.

Mayhew draws attention to an important detail in the text: Moses emphasizes several times that he is physiologically capable of having a relationship with the widow, but refuses out of religious convictions. For the author of the Life, this is crucial. If a person does not sin simply because he cannot, it is not considered a virtue. Refusal must be a conscious choice. This directly contradicts Rozanov’s theory of innate inability.

According to Mayhew, a new Christian form of masculinity is constructed in the story of Moses. It is determined not by power and the continuation of the family line, but by the complete absence of sexual desire. Castration here acts as a paradoxical act of liberation. It transfers Moses to the status of a eunuch, removes the conflict between spirit and flesh, and makes him an ideal of ascetic masculinity.

Returning to the monastery, Moses gains the ability to transmit this state to others. When he strikes a monk suffering from carnal desires with his staff, the monk forever loses his sensitivity. Mayhew sees this as a ritual transmission of “castrated masculinity.” The secular model of fatherhood is replaced by a spiritual one: Moses becomes a “father” for the monks precisely through his refusal of physical procreation.

Can Moses Be Considered a Queer Figure?

This question demands strict historical precision. From the perspective of historical sexuality studies, the answer will be negative. The concepts of “homosexual” or “queer” did not emerge until the late 19th century. In Kyivan Rus’, there were no sexual identities in our understanding — there were only actions. Calling an 11th-century monk by modern terms is incorrect.

But if we look more broadly, the story of Moses certainly allows for a queer reading.

First, he radically falls out of the heteronormative system, where a person is expected to marry and have children. For medieval society, the refusal to continue the family line and pass on property was a violation of the social norm.

Second, his fate breaks the division into male and female. Having become a eunuch, Moses steps outside the usual gender roles. As Mayhew notes, he does not become sexless, but acquires an alternative masculinity.

Third, the Life shows the possibility of a different family in ancient Russia. Having renounced blood relations, Moses finds a new family in the male collective of the Kyiv-Pechersk Monastery, where spiritual bonds are valued higher than blood ties.

It is impossible to reliably know what Moses’ actual psychosexual profile was. However, his story itself proves: even in the foundation of ancient Russian culture, there was a space for non-normativity. The right to difference, the search for one’s identity and alternative forms of intimacy have always found their place in the history of Russia and Russian Orthodoxy.