The Monk Ephraim the Syrian, a teacher of repentance, was born at the beginning of the fourth century (the precise year of his birth is unknown) in the city of Nineveh (Mesopotamia) into the family of impoverished toilers of the soil. His parents raised their son in piety. But from the time of his childhood he was known for his quick temper and irascible character, and in his youth he often had fights, he acted thoughtlessly, and even doubted of God's Providence, until he finally recovered his senses from the Lord's doing, guiding him on the path of repentance and salvation. One time he was unjustly accused of the theft of a sheep and was thrown into prison. And there in a dream he heard a voice, calling him to repentance and rectifying his life. After this, he was acquitted of the charges and set free.
Within Ephraim there took place a deep repentance. The youth withdrew outside the city and became a hermit. This form of Christian asceticism had been introduced at Nineveh by a disciple of the Monk Anthony the Great - the Egyptian Wilderness-Dweller Eugenios (Eugene).
Among the hermits especially prominent was the noted ascetic, a preacher of Christianity and denouncer of the Arians, the bishop of the Nineveh Church, Saint James. The Monk Ephraim became one of his disciples. Under the graced guidance of the holy hierarch, the Monk Ephraim attained to Christian meekness, humility, submission to the Will of God, and the strength without murmur to undergo various temptations. Saint James knew the high qualities of his student and he used them for the good of the Nineveh Church - he entrusted him to read sermons, to instruct children in the school, and he took Ephraim along with him to the First Ecumenical Council at Nicea (in the year 325). The Monk Ephraim was in obedience to Saint James for fourteen years, until the bishop's death.
After the capture of Nineveh by the Persians in the year 363, the Monk Ephraim abandoned the wilderness and settled in a monastery near the city of Edessa. Here he saw many a great ascetic passing their lives in prayer and psalmody. Their caves were solitary shelters, and they fed themselves off a certain plant. He became especially close with the ascetic Julian, who was one with him in a spirit of repentance. The Monk Ephraim combined with his ascetic works an incessant study of the Word of God, gathering within it for his soul both solace and wisdom. The Lord gave him a gift of teaching, and people began to come to him, wanting to hear his guidances, which produced a particular effect upon the soul, since he began with self-accusation. The monk both verbally and in writing instructed everyone in repentance, faith and piety, and he denounced the Arian heresy, which during those times was disrupting Christian society. And pagans likewise, listening to the preaching of the monk, were converted to Christianity.
He also toiled no little at the interpretation of Holy Scripture - with an explication of the Pentateuch of Moses. He wrote many a prayer and church-song, thereby enriching the Church's Divine-services. Famed prayers of Saint Ephraim are to the Most Holy Trinity, to the Son of God, and to the Most Holy Mother of God. He wrote for his Church song for the Twelve Great Feastdays of the Lord (the Nativity of Christ, the Baptism, the Resurrection), and funereal song. Saint Emphrem's Prayer of Repentance, "O Lord and Master of my life...", is said during Great Lent, and it summons Christians to spiritual renewal.
The Church since times ancient valued highly the works of the Monk Ephraim: his works were read in certain churches, at gatherings of the faithful, after the Holy Scripture. And now at present in accord with the Church Ustav (Rule), certain of his instructions are prescribed to be read on the days of Lent.
Amidst the prophets, Saint David is pre-eminently the psalmodist; amidst the holy fathers of the Church the Monk Ephraim the Syrian is pre-eminently a man of prayer. His spiritual experience made him a guide to monks and an help to the pastors of Edessa. The Monk Ephraim wrote in Syrian, but his works were very early translated into the Greek and Armenian languages, and from the Greek into the Latin and Slavonic languages.
In numerous of the works of the Monk Ephraim are encountered glimpses of the life of the Syrian ascetics, the centre of which involved prayer and with it thereupon the toiling for the common good of the brethren, in the obediences. The outlook of the meaning of life among all the Syrian ascetics was the same. The end purpose of their efforts was considered by the monks to be communality with God and the diffusion of Divine grace within the soul of the ascetic; the present life for them was a time of tears, fasting and toil.
"If the Son of God be within thee, then also His Kingdom is within thee. Here then is the Kingdom of God - within thee, a sinner. Go inwards into thine self, search diligently and without toil thou shalt find it. Outside of thee is death, and the door to it is sin. Go inwards into thine self, dwell within thine heart, for since there is God." Constant spiritual sobriety, the developing of good within the soul of man gives unto him the possibility to take upon himself a task like blessedness, and a self-constraint like sanctity. The requital is presupposed in the earthly life of man, it is an undertaking by degrees of its spiritual perfection. Whoso grows himself wings upon the earth, says the Monk Ephraim, is one who soars up into the heights; whoso down here purifies his mind there glimpses the Glory of God; in what measure each one loveth God is that measure wherein is satiated to fullness by the love of God. Man, cleansing himself and attaining the grace of the Holy Spirit while still here, down upon the earth, has a foretaste therein of the Kingdom of Heaven. To attain to life eternal, in the teachings of the Monk Ephraim, does not mean to pass over from one sphere of being into another, but means rather to discover "the Heavenly" spiritual condition of being. Eternal life is not bestown man as a one-sided working by God, but rather like a seed, it constantly grows within him through effort, toil and struggle.
The pledge within us of "theosis" ("obozhenie" or "deification") is the Baptism of Christ, and the primal propulsion for the Christian life is repentance. The Monk Ephraim was a great teacher of repentance. The forgiveness of sins in the sacramental-mystery of Repentance, according to his teaching, is not an external exoneration, not a forgetting of the sins, but rather their complete undoing, their annihilation. The tears of repentance wash away and burn away the sin. And moreover they (i.e. the tears) vivify, they transfigure sinful nature, they give the strength "to walk in the way of the commandments of the Lord," encouraging the hope on God. In the fiery font of Repentance, wrote the Monk, "thou dost sail thyself across, O sinner, thou dost resuscitate thyself from the dead."
The Monk Ephraim, in his humility reckoning himself the least and worst of all, at the end of his life set out to Egypt, to see the efforts of the great ascetics. He was accepted there as a welcome guest and received for himself great solace in his associating with them. On the return journey he visited at Caesarea Cappadocia with Sainted Basil the Great, who wanted to ordain him a priest, but the monk considered himself unworthy of priesthood, and at the insistence of Saint Basil, he accepted only the dignity of deacon, in which he remained until death. Even later on, Saint Basil the Great invited the Monk Ephraim to accept the cathedra of a bishop, but the saint feigned folly to avoid for himself this honour, in humility reckoning himself unworthy of it.
Upon his return to his own Edessa wilderness, the Monk Ephraim intended to spend the rest of his life in solitude. But Divine Providence again summoned him to service of neighbour. The inhabitants of Edessa were suffering from a devastating famine. By the influence of his word, the monk induced the wealthy to render aid to those that lacked. From the offerings of believers he built a poor-house for the destitute and sick. The Monk Ephraim then withdrew to a cave nigh to Edessa, where he remained to the end of his days.
Sainted John Chrysostom - a great ecumenical teacher and hierarch - died in the city of Comene in the year 407 on his way to a place of exile, having been condemned by the intrigues of the empress Eudoxia because of his daring denunciation of the vices ruling over Constantinople. The transfer of his venerable relics was made in the year 438: after 30 years following the death of the saint during the reign of Eudoxia's son emperor Theodosius II (408-450).
Saint John Chrysostom had the warm love and deep respect of the people, and grief over his untimely death lived on in the hearts of Christians. Saint John's student Saint Proclus, Patriarch of Constantinople (434-447), making Divine-services in the Church of Saint Sophia, preached a sermon which in glorifying Saint John he said: "O John! Thy life was filled with difficulties, but thy death was glorious, thy grave is blessed and reward abundant through the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. O graced one, having conquered the bounds of time and place! Love hath conquered space, unforgetting memory hath annihilated the limits, and place doth not hinder the miracles of the saint." Those who were present in church, deeply touched by the words of Saint Proclus, did not allow him even to finish his sermon. With one accord they began to entreat the Patriarch to intercede with the emperor, so that the relics of Saint John might be transferred to Constantinople.
The emperor, overwhelmed by Saint Proclus, gave his consent and made the order to transfer the relics of Saint John. But the people dispatched by him were by no means able to lift up the holy relics - not until that moment when the emperor realising his oversight that he had not sent the message to Saint John, humbly beseeching of him forgiveness for himself and for his mother Eudoxia.
The message was read at the grave of Saint John and after this they easily lifted up the relics, carried them onto a ship and arrived at Constantinople. The reliquary coffin with the relics was placed in the Church of the holy Martyr Irene. The Patriarch opened the coffin: the body of Saint John had remained without decay. The emperor, having approached the coffin with tears, asked forgiveness. All day and night people did not leave the coffin. In the morning the reliquary coffin with its relics was brought to the Church of the Holy Apostles. The people cried out: "Receive back thy throne, father!" Then Patriarch Proclus and the clergy standing at the relics saw Saint John open his mouth and pronounce: "Peace be to all."
In the ninth century the feastday in honour of the transfer of the relics of Sainted John Chrysostom was written into church singing.
The Monk Xenophon, his spouse Maria and their sons Arcadius and John, were noted citizens of Constantinople and lived in the fifth century.
Despite riches and position, they distinguished themselves by their simplicity of soul and goodness of heart.
Wishing to give their sons John and Arcadius a more complete education, they sent them off to the Phoenician city of Beirut. Through Divine Providence the ship on which both brothers sailed became ship-wrecked. The brothers were pitched by the waves onto shore at different places. Aggrieved at being separated, the brothers dedicated themselves to God and accepted monasticism. For a long time the parents received no news about their children and presumed them to have perished. Xenophon, however, now already quite old, maintained firm hope in the Lord and consoled his wife Maria, telling her not to sorrow but to believe that their children were watched over by the Lord.
After several years the spouses made pilgrimage to the Holy places and at Jerusalem they met their sons, pursuing asceticsm at different monasteries. The joyful parents gave thanks to the Lord for providently re-uniting the whole family. For the remainder of their lives, the monastics Xenophon and Maria dedicated themselves to God and accepted monasticism. The Monks Arcadius and John, having taken leave of their parents, went out into the wilderness, where after long ascetic toil they were glorified by gifts of wonderworking and perspicacity. The monastic elders Xenophon and Maria, having pursued asceticism in silence and strict fasting, also received of God the gift of wonderworking.
The Hieromartyr Clement was born in the Galatian city of Ancyra in the year 258, from a pagan father and a Christian mother. In infancy he lost his father, and at twelve years of age also his mother, who predicted for him a martyr's death for belief in Christ. A woman adopting him named Sophia raised him in the fear of God. During the time of a terrible famine in Galatia several pagans cast out their own children, not having the wherewithal to feed them, and Sophia gathered up also these hapless ones, she fed and clothed them, and Saint Clement assisted her in this. He taught the children and prepared them for Holy Baptism. Many of them died as martyrs for the faith in Christ.
For his virtuous life Saint Clement was made a reader, and later a deacon, and at age eighteen he received the dignity of presbyter, and at age twenty he was ordained bishop of Ancyra. Soon afterwards there flared up the persecution against Christians under Diocletian (284-305). Bishop Clement was arrested under denunciation and had also to answer for himself. The governor of Galatia, Dometian, tried to sway the saint to the worship of the pagan gods, but Saint Clement firmly confessed his faith and valiantly endured all the tortures, to which the cruel official subjected him. They suspended him on a tree, and tore at his body such that the bare bones could be seen. They struck him fiercely with clubs and stones, and they turned him about on a wheel and burned at him with a low fire. The Lord preserved His sufferer and healed his lacerated body. Then Dometian dispatched the saint to Rome to the emperor Diocletian himself, with a report that Bishop Clement had been fiercely tortured, but had proven unyielding. Diocletian, seeing the martyr completely healthy, did not believe the report and subjected him to still yet crueler tortures, and then had him locked up in prison.
Many of the pagans, seeing the bravery of the saint and the miraculous healing of his wounds, believed in Christ. People flocked to Saint Clement in prison for guidance, healing, and Baptism, such that the prison was literally transformed into a church. Many of these people, when reported about, were executed by the emperor. Diocletian, struck by the amazing endurance of Saint Clement, sent him off to Nicomedia to his co-emperor Maximian.
On the ship along the way, the saint was joined by his disciple Agathangelus, who had avoided being executed with the other confessors, and who now wanted to suffer and die for Christ together with Bishop Clement.
The emperor Maximian in turn sent off Saint Clement and Agathangelus to the governor Agrippina, who subjected them to such inhuman torments that even among the pagan on-lookers there was felt a sense of pity for the martyrs and they began to pelt the torturers with stones.
Having been set free, the saints healed an inhabitant of the city with a laying on of hands and they baptised and instructed people, thronging to them in multitudes. Arrested again on orders of Maximian, they were sent off home to the city of Ancyra, where the Ancyra prince Cyrenius had them put to torture, and then dispatched them off to the city of Amasia to the official Dometius, known for his especial cruelty.
In Amasia the martyrs were thrown into molten lime. They spent a whole day in it and remained unharmed. They flayed their skin, beat them with iron rods, they set them on red-hot beds and poured sulfur. All this failed to harm the saints, and they were sent off to Tarsis for new tortures. In the wilderness along the way Saint Clement in prayer had a revelation, that he would suffer another 28 years for the Name of Christ. And then having endured a multitude of tortures, the saints were locked up in prison.
After the death of Maximian, Saint Agathangelus was beheaded with the sword. Ancyra Christians set Saint Clement free from prison and they took him to a cave church. There, after celebrating Liturgy, the saint announced to the faithful the soon impending end of the persecution and his own approaching demise. The holy martyr soon actually was killed by soldiers from the city, who stormed the church. They beheaded the saint during the time of his offering the Bloodless Sacrifice (+ c. 312).
The Holy Disciple Timothy was from the Lycaonian city of Lystra in Asia Minor.
Saint Timothy was converted to Christ in the year 52 by the holy Apostle Paul. When the Apostle Paul and Barnabas first visited the Lycaonian cities, the Apostle Paul at Lystra healed one crippled from birth; many of the inhabitants there then believed in Christ, and among them was the future youthful disciple Timothy, his mother Eunice and grandmother Lois (Acts 14:6-12; II Tim. 1:5).
The seed of faith, planted in the soul of Saint Timothy by the Apostle Paul, brought forth abundant fruit. He became a zealous student of the Apostle Paul, and later his constant companion and co-worker in the preaching of the Gospel. The Apostle Paul loved Saint Timothy and in his Epistles called him his beloved son, with gratitude remembering his devotion and fidelity. He wrote to Timothy: "Thou hast followed me in teaching, in life, in disposition, faith, magnanimity, love, and patience in afflictions and sufferings..." (II Tim. 3:10-11).
The Apostle Paul in the year 65 ordained Saint Timothy as bishop of the Ephesus Church, which the saint administered for fifteen years. And finally the holy Apostle Paul, situated in prison and knowing that the act of martyrdom was before him, summoned his faithful student and friend, the Disciple Timothy, for a last farewell (II Tim. 4:9).
Saint Timothy ended his life as a martyr. At Ephesus the pagans made a feastday in honour of their idols and they carried them through the city, accompanied by impious ceremonies and songs. The holy Bishop Timothy, zealous for the glory of God, attempted to halt the procession and reason with the spiritually blind idol-worshipping people, by preaching the true faith in Christ. The pagans dashed angrily upon the holy disciple. They beat him, dragged him along the ground, and finally, they stoned him. The holy Disciple Timothy's death by martyrdom occurred in the year 80. In the fourth century the holy relics of the Disciple Timothy were transferred to Constantinople and placed in the church of the Holy Apostles. Holy Church venerates Saint Timothy as amongst the number of the Seventy Disciples.
The Monk Maximus the Confessor was born in Constantinople in about the year 580 and raised in a pious Christian family. In his youth he received a very diverse education: he studied philosophy, grammatics, rhetoric, he was well-read in the authors of antiquity and he mastered to perfection theological dialectics. When Saint Maximus entered into government service, the scope of his learning and his conscientiousness enabled him to become first secretary to the emperor Heraclius (611-641). But court life vexed him, and he withdrew to the Chrysopoleia monastery (on the opposite shore of the Bosphorus - now Skutari), where he accepted monastic tonsure. By the humility of his wisdom he soon won the love of the brethren and was chosen hegumen of the monastery, but even in this dignity, in his own words, he "remained a simple monk." But in 633 at the request of a theologian, the future Jerusalem Patriarch Saint Sophronius, the Monk Maximus left the monastery and set off to Alexandria.
Saint Sophronius was known in these times as an implacable antagonist against the Monothelite heresy. The Fourth Ecumenical Council (year 451) had condemned the Monophysite heresy, which confessed in the Lord Jesus Christ only one nature (the Divine, but not the Human nature, of Christ). Influenced by this erroneous tendency of thought, the Monothelite heretics introduced the concept that in Christ there was only "one Divine will" ("thelema") and only "one Divine effectuation or energy" ("energia"), - which sought to lead back by another path to the repudiated Monophysite heresy. Monotheletism found numerous adherents in Armenia, Syria, Egypt. The heresy, fanned also by nationalist animosities, became a serious threat to church unity in the East. The struggle of Orthodoxy with the heresies was particularly complicated by the fact, that in the year 630 three of the Patriarchal thrones in the Orthodox East were occupied by Monothelites: at Constantinople - by Sergius, at Antioch -- by Athanasias, and at Alexandria -- by Cyrus.
The path of the Monk Maximus from Constantinople to Alexandria led through Crete, where indeed he began his preaching activity. He clashed there with a bishop, who adhered to the heretical opinions of Severus and Nestorius. At Alexandria and its surroundings the monk spent about six years. In 638 the emperor Heraclius, together with the patriarch Sergius, attempted to downplay the discrepancies in the confession of faith, and the issued an edict: the so-called "Ecthesis" ("Ekthesis tes pisteos" - "Exposition of Faith), which ultimately decreed that there be confessed the teaching about "one will" ("mono-thelema") operative under the two natures of the Saviour. In defending Orthodoxy against this "Ecthesis," the Monk Maximus recoursed to people of various vocations and positions, and these conversations had success. "Not only the clergy and all the bishops, but also the people, and all the secular officials felt within themselves some sort of invisible attraction to him,” testifies his Vita.
Towards the end of 638 the patriarch Sergius died, and in 641 the emperor Heraclius also died. The imperial throne came to be occupied by the cruel and coarse Constans II (642-668), an open adherent of the Monothelites. The assaults of the heretics against Orthodoxy intensified. The Monk Maximus went off to Carthage and he preached there and in its surroundings for about five years. When the successor of patriarch Sergius, patriarch Pyrrhus, arrived there in forsaking Constantinople because of court intrigues, and being by persuasion a Monothelite, there occurred between him and the Monk Maximus an open disputation in June 645. The result of this was that Pyrrhus publicly acknowledged his error and even wanted to put into writing to Pope Theodore the repudiation of his error. The Monk Maximus together with Pyrrhus set off to Rome, where Pope Theodore accepted the repentance of the former patriarch and restored him to his dignity.
In the year 647 the Monk Maximus returned to Africa. And there, at a council of bishops Monotheletism was condemned as an heresy. In the year 648, in place of the "Ecthesis," there was issued a new edict, commissioned by Constans and compiled by the Constantinople patriarch Paul, the "Typus" ("Tupos tes pisteos" - "Pattern of the Faith"), which overall forbade any further deliberations, whether if be about "one will" or about "two wills," as regarding the acknowledged "two natures" of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Monk Maximus thereupon turned to the successor of the Roman Pope Theodore, Pope Martin I (649-654), with a request to examine the question of Monotheletism at a conciliar consideration by all the Church. In October of 649 there was convened the Lateran Council, at which were present 150 Western bishops and 37 representatives of the Orthodox East, amongst which was also the Monk Maximus the Confessor. The Council condemned Monotheletism, and its defenders - the Constantinople patriarchs Sergius, Paul, and Pyrrhus, were consigned to anathema.
When Constans II received the determinations of the Council, he gave orders to arrest both Pope Martin and the Monk Maximus. This summons took five years to fulfill, in the year 654. They accused the Monk Maximus of treason to the realm and locked him up in prison. In 656 he was sent off to Thrace, and again later brought back to a Constantinople prison. The monk, together with two of his students, was subjected to the cruellest torments: for each they cut out the tongue and cut off the right hand. Then they were sent off to Colchis. But here the Lord worked an inexplicable miracle: all three of them found the ability to speak and to write. The Monk Maximus indeed foretold his own end (+ 13 August 662)
The Monk Maximus has left to the Church a large theological legacy. His exegetical works contain explanations of difficult places within the Holy Scripture, also Commentary on the Prayer of the Lord and on the 59th Psalm, various "scholia" ("marginalia" or text-margin commentaries) on treatises of the Hieromartyr Dionysios the Areopagite (+ 96) and Sainted Gregory the Theologian (+ 389). To the exegetical works of Saint Maximus belongs likewise his explication of Divine-services, entitled "Mystagogia" ("Introduction concerning the Mystery").
To the dogmatic works of the Monk Maximus belong: the Exposition on his dispute with Pyrrhus, and several tracts and letters to various people. In them are contained expositions of the Orthodox teaching of the Divine Essence and about Hypostatic-Persons of the Holy Trinity, about the Incarnation of God, and about the "theosis" ("deification", "obozhenie") of human nature.
"Nothing in theosis is the product of human nature,” the Monk Maximus writes in a letter to his friend Thalassius, “since nature cannot comprehend God. It is only but the mercy of God that has the capacity to endow theosis unto the existing... In theosis man (the image of God) becomes likened to God, he rejoices in all the plenitude that does belong to him by nature, since the grace of the Spirit doth triumph within him and because God doth act within him." (Letter 22).
To the Monk Maximus belong also works concerning the anthropologic (i.e., concerning man). He deliberates on the nature of the soul and its consciously-personal existence after the death of a man. Among his moral compositions, especially important is his "Chapters on Love." The Monk Maximus the Confessor wrote likewise three hymns in the finest traditions of church hymnography, following the lead of Saint Gregory the Theologian.
The theology of the Monk Maximus the Confessor, based on the spiritual experience of the knowledge of the great Desert-Fathers, and utilising the skilled art of dialectics worked out by pre-Christian philosophy, was continued and developed upon in the works of the Monk Simeon the New Theologian, and Sainted Gregory Palamas.
The Monk Euthymius the Great came from the city of Meletina in Armenia, near the River Euphrates. His parents, Paul and Dionysia, were illustrious people and pious Christians. For a long time they did not have children, and finally through fervent prayer a son was born to them, whose appearance into the light of day was preceded by a Divine apparition foretelling a great future for the child.
The father of the Monk Euthymius soon died, and his mother - fulfilling a vow to dedicate her son to God - gave him over for educating to her brother, the Monk Eudoxius. He presented the lad to the bishop of the Meletina Church, Otreus, who with love took upon himself caring for him. Seeing his good conduct, the bishop soon made him a reader. Saint Euthymius later accepted monasticism and was ordained to the dignity of presbyter. At the same time, he was entrusted with the stewardship of all the city monasteries. The Monk Euthymius often visited the monastery of saint Polyeuctus, and during the days of Great Lent he withdrew into the wilderness. The position of steward of the monasteries weighed heavily upon the ascetic seeking quietude, and in his thirtieth year of life he secretly left the city and headed to Jerusalem where, having prostrated himself before the holy places, he withdrew into the Tharan Lavra. Having found outside the monastery a solitary empty abode, he settled into it, securing his subsistence by weaving baskets. Nearby, the Monk Theoctistus pursued asceticism. They had both one striving for God, one will, one purpose. Usually after the feast of Theophany, they withdrew into the Kutilleia wilderness (not far from Jericho). One day though they left there, having chosen a place in the mountains difficult of access, and settled into a cave. The Lord however soon revealed their solitary place for the benefit of many people: shepherds driving their flocks came upon the cave and told about it in the village. People seeking spiritual benefit began to throng to the hermits. Gradually a monastic community grew up - several monks came from the Tharan monastery, among them Marin and Luke. The Monk Euthymius entrusted the running of the growing monastery to his friend Theoctistus, and himself became a spiritual brother. He exhorted the brethren: "Know, that one desiring to lead a monastic life ought not to have his own will, he is always to be found in obedience and humility and to be mindful of the thought of death, to fear the Judgment and the eternal fire and to desire the Heavenly Kingdom."
The monk commanded young monastics to tackle bodily labour with an inner thought of God. He said: "If laymen work much in order to feed themselves and their families, and besides this, they give alms and offer sacrifice to God, then all the moreso ought we as monks to work, so as to avoid idleness and not be nourished by the work of strangers." The abba demanded that the monks keep silence in church during Divine-services and at meals. He did not allow young monks, wishing to fast more than others of the brethren, to follow their own will, but urged them to partake of all the food at meals with temperance, not having over-eaten.
In these years the Monk Euthymius converted and baptised many Arabs, among whom was the military-head Aspevet and his son Terevon, whom the Monk Euthymius healed from sickness. Aspevet received the name Peter in Baptism and afterwards he was a bishop amongst the Arabs.
The fame of the miracles accomplished by the Monk Euthymius spread quickly. People began to throng from everywhere; brought with sickness, they received healing. Unable to bear human fame and glory, the monk secretly left the monastery, taking with him only his closest student Dometian. He withdrew into the Ruv wilderness and settled on the high mountain of Mardes, around about the Dead Sea. In the quests for solitude the monk explored the Zeph wilderness and settled in the cave, where formerly holy king David hid from the pursuit of king Saul. The Monk Euthymius founded there a monastery, and at the cave of David he established a church. During this time the Monk Euthymius converted many monks in the wilderness from the Manichaean heresy, he worked miracles, healed the sick and cast out devils.
Visitors to the saint disturbed the tranquillity of the wilderness; loving silence, he decided to return to the monastery of Saint Theoctistus that he had forsaken. Along the way the monk took a fancy to a solitary place on a mountain and he remained on it. There afterwards his holy body was buried.
Blessed Theoctistus went out with his brethren to the Monk Euthymius and requested him to return to the monastery, but the monk did not comply. However, he promised to come to the monastery on Sundays for community Divine-services.
The Monk Euthymius did not wish to have anyone nearby, nor to organise a general monastery or lavra, but in a vision the Lord commanded him not to drive away those who were come to him for the salvation of their souls. After some time brethren again gathered around him, and he organised a Lavra, on the pattern of the Tharan Lavra. In the year 429, when the monk Euthymius was 52 years old, the Jerusalem Patriarch Juvenalius consecrated the lavra church and supplied it with presbyters and deacons.
The lavra was at first poor, but the monk steadfastly trusted on God to send down all the necessities for people. Once there came to the lavra about 400 male pilgrims - Armenians from Jerusalem who were starving. Viewing this, the Monk Euthymius summoned the steward and ordered him to feed the wanderers. The steward answered that there was no such quantity of food in the monastery. The monk, however, persisted. Going to the room where the bread was kept, the steward found there a large quantity of bread. With this came forth wine and oil. The wanderers ate to the glory of God: they ate their fill and after this there remained a three-month supply of food for the brethren. Thus the Lord wrought a miracle through the faith of Saint Euthymius.
Once one of the monastics refused to carry out an obedience assigned to him. Despite the fact that the monk having summoned him urged him to comply, the monastic remained obstinate. The monk then shouted loudly: "Thou wilt see what the reward for disobedience is." The monastic fell to the ground in a fit of raving. The brethren began to make entreaty to the abba for him, and then the Monk Euthymius healed the insubordinate one who, having come to himself, asked forgiveness and promised to improve himself. "Obedience," said Saint Euthymius, "is a great virtue. The Lord loves obedience more than sacrifice, but disobedience leads to death."
Two of the brethren in the monastery of Saint Euthymius became overwhelmed by the austere form of life and they resolved to flee. Foreseeing in spirit their intent, the monk summoned them and for a long time he urged them to give up their destructive intention. He said: "Heed not that state of mind of having sorrow and hatred for the place in which we live, and being prompted to go off to another place. Let a monk not imagine that, having gone to another place, he arrives at something better, since good deeds are realised not by a place, but by a firm will and by faith. Whence the tree, which often they transplant to another place, does not bear fruit."
In the year 431 was convened in Ephesus the Third Ecumenical Council, directed against the Nestorian heresy. The Monk Euthymius rejoiced over the affirmation of Orthodoxy but was grieved about the archbishop of Antioch John who, being orthodox, defended Nestorius.
In the year 451 was convened at Chalcedon the Fourth Ecumenical Council against the heresy of Dioscorus who, in contrast to Nestorius, asserted that in the Lord Jesus Christ there is only one nature - the Divine - having in the Incarnation swallowed up the human nature (thus the heresy was called Monophysite).
The Monk Euthymius accepted the confession of the Chalcedon and he acknowledged it as Orthodox. News about this spread quickly among the monks and hermits and many of them, having previously believed wrongly, through the example of Saint Euthymius accepted the confession of the Chalcedon Council.
For his ascetic life and firm confession of the Orthodox faith Saint Euthymius received the title "the Great." Having become wearied by intercourse with the world, the holy abba settled for a time into an inner wilderness. After his return to the lavra some of the brethren saw that, when he celebrated the Divine Liturgy, fire descended from Heaven and encircled the saint. The monk himself revealed to several of the monastics, that often he saw an Angel celebrating the Holy Liturgy together with him. The monk had a gift of perspicacity - he saw the innder workings of the spirit and he discerned human inclinations. When monastics received the Holy Mysteries, it was revealed to the monk who approached worthily, and who unto condemnation of self.
When the Monk Euthymios was 82 years old, there came to him blessed Sava (the future Sava the Sanctified), who was then still a youth. The elder received him with love and sent him off to the monastery of the Monk Theoctistus. He foretold, that the Monk Sava would shine in the monastic life.
When the saint had become 90 years of age, his companion and fellow Monk Theoctistus became grievously ill. The Monk Euthymius came to visit his friend and remained at the monastery; he took his leave of him and was present at the end. Having consigned the body to the grave, he returned to the lavra.
The time of his death was revealed to the Monk Euthymius through a particular mercy of God. On the day of memory of the Monk Anthony the Great, 17 January, the Monk Euthymius gave blessing to make the all-night vigil and, summoning the presbyters to the Altar, he told them that he would no more celebrate with them another vigil, because the Lord was summoning him from earthly life. All were filled with great sadness, but the monk commanded the brethren to gather together with him in the morning. He began to instruct the brethren: "If ye love me, observe my precepts, acquire love, which is an uniting of perfection. No virtuousness is possible without love and humility. The Lord Himself on account of His Love for us humbled Himself and became Man, as are we. We need therefore unceasingly to offer up praise to Him, particularly we, who have renounced the passions of the world. Never leave from church services, observe tradition and monastic rules carefully. If anyone of the brethren struggleth with unclean thoughts, unceasingly guide and instruct him, so that the devil does not carry off the brother into the pit."
"I add likewise another command: let the gates of the monastery never be bolted to wanderers and everything that you have, offer to the needy, for the poor in their misfortune do what you can to help." Afterwards, having given instruction for the guidance of the brethren, the monk promised to remain in spirit with all who desired to bear asceticism in his monastery until the end of the ages.
Having dismissed all, the Monk Euthymius kept about him only his one disciple Dometian and, remaining with him inside the Altar for three days, he died on 20 January in the year 473 at the age of 97 years.
At the burial of the holy abba there immediately thronged a multitude of monks from the monasteries and from the wilderness, among whom was Saint Gerasimus. The Patriarch Anastasius came also with clergy, the Nitreian monks Martyrius and Elias, who later became Jerusalem Patriarchs - about which the Monk Euthymius had foretold them.
Blessed Dometian did not leave the grave of his preceptor for six days. On the seventh day, he saw the holy abba, joyously having returned with love for his student: "I am come, my child, in preparation for thee in peace, wherefore I prayed the Lord Jesus Christ, that thou be with me." Having told the brethren about the vision, Saint Dometian went to church and in joy offered his spirit to God. He was buried alongside Saint Euthymios. The relics of the Monk Euthymios were situated at his monastery in Palestine: the Russian pilgrim hegumen Daniel saw them in the twelfth century.
