Saint Niphon of Novgorod was born at the end of the XI century in Kiev, and was baptised Nikita. At the age of 7, his parents sent him to study literacy, and he surprised everyone with his rapid success and constant prayer to heaven, constant fasting and abstinence. After the death of his parents, Nikita, the only heir, gave away all his property and came to the Pechersk monastery. Thus, in his youth, he was tonsured a monk at the Kiev Caves Lavra, the abbot of which at that time was Elder Timothy. No more information about his childhood and youth has been preserved.
In 1130, Bishop John of Novgorod retired from the pulpit to a monastery, and Blessed Niphon was elected to the St. Sophia throne by a unanimous decision of the Novgorodians. His episcopal consecration took place in Kiev.
There was unrest in Novgorod at that time. During the 26 years of Nifont's service, princes changed in the city 10 times, and in 1134 the townspeople rebelled after Prince Vsevolod's not very successful military campaign. To bring the people to reason, Metropolitan Michael II of Kiev imposed a church ban on the entire city. Then Saint Niphon sent Abbot Isaiah to Kiev with a petition to the metropolitan. He humbly asked for forgiveness and blessings for the criminal Novgorod. Mikhail greatly respected Nifont and, after the petition, he himself came to Novgorod to personally admonish the obstinate people.
Saint Niphon did much to end the civil strife and establish peace between the Russian principalities. This was facilitated by his wise messages to rival princes. In 1135, Niphon managed to prevent a very large bloody clash between Kiev, Chernigov and Novgorod. He was very saddened by the discord in Russia and the news that the Polovtsians decided to take advantage of this state of affairs, gathered the husbands of Novgorod and, accompanied by them, went around the cities, persuaded the princes to reconcile. He found the people of Kiev and Chernigov already on the battlefield, awaiting battle. But the appearance of Niphon in front of the troops confused the warring parties, and the saint convinced the princes to make peace.
The saint insisted on the observance of church rules by the sovereign princes. He was honest and strict. In 1136, the Chernigov prince Svyatoslav Olegovich began to rule in Novgorod. Saint Niphon did not give him his blessing to marry a close relative. In the end, Svyatoslav was married in his house church by a Chernigov priest.
The bishop of Novgorod openly opposed Grand Duke Izyaslav II when, in 1147, learning of the death of Mikhail II, he convened a church council, deciding independently, without consulting the Patriarchate of Constantinople, to appoint a new metropolitan of Kiev, the reclusive Russian monk Klima Smolyatich. He was a famous ascetic and theologian. The prince decided not to seek the blessing of the Patriarch of Constantinople, but to consecrate Clement as the head of St. Clement, the pope of Rome, whose relics were received as a gift from Chersonesos.
The Novgorodians loved their pastor very much, for them he was a strict and just confessor of the truth. Patriarch Nicholas IV Mouzalon appreciated Nifont's integrity, and he sent him a letter of commendation, in which he compared the saint to the first holy fathers who suffered for Orthodoxy. Nifont became an archbishop. 
Saint Niphon often visited the monastery of his spiritual friend, St. Anthony the Roman, who ordained him a priest in 1131 and appointed him abbot over the brethren. In 1147, the monk departed to the Lord, and the burial of the venerable body of the saint of God was performed by Saint Niphon himself. He laid Anthony to rest in the Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos.
In April 1156, the saint went to meet the legitimate Metropolitan Konstantin, who had arrived in Kiev from Constantinople, and stayed at the Kiev Caves Monastery, the place of his tonsure, where he reposed. Before his death, he saw in a dream the Monk Theodosius, who said to him: "In a good hour you have come to us, my brother and son Niphon, from now on you will be inseparable from us." In his hands, the monk held a scroll with the words: "Behold, and the children that God has given me." The Saint departed to the Lord on the Sabbath of Holy Week. He bequeathed it to be placed in the Feodosieva Cave, but later his holy relics were transferred to the Nearby Antoniev Caves.
Saint Niphon described the lives of several saints of the Kiev Caves. Historians claim that he continued the Nestorian chronicle from 1116, after Sylvester. 
Saint Niphon did much to increase the glory of God – he built and decorated the churches of Novgorod, some of which still exist. 
Information about the veneration of Niphon as a saint is found for the first time in the middle of the XV century. And his ecclesiastical glorification took place in 1549 at the second Makaryevsky Cathedral. "The Word of Niphon of Novgorod" was written in 1462 by Monk Kassian, a resident of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra.