Anthony the New of Berroia
Our Venerable Father Anthony the New, the Wonderworker of Berroia
Venerable · Wonderworker · b. late 10th century, at Berroia (Veria) in Macedonia — d. 11th century, in the desert near the Aliakmon, aged about 94
Commemorated 17 January — Commemoration with Anthony the Great, his namesake, 1 August — Local feast at Berroia (Veria)
Anthony the New (11th century) is honoured by the Church as a wonderworking solitary of Berroia (modern Veria) in Macedonia, the ascetic whom his own countrymen, marvelling at his likeness to Anthony the Great, surnamed "the New" in his honour. Born of pious and wealthy parents, he became a monk at the Skete of Berroia — the monastery of Saint John the Forerunner — where he laboured some twenty years; then, seeking a harder stillness, he withdrew to an almost inaccessible cave near the river Aliakmon and dwelt there some fifty years, living on the wild plants of the place, unknown to all but the priest who came at intervals to bring him the Holy Mysteries, and enduring, like his great namesake, the assaults of the demons. He reposed at about the age of ninety-four; his incorrupt body was found by hunters and carried to Berroia, where his relics became a fountain of healing. He is kept on January 17, the feast of Anthony the Great, and honoured at Berroia on August 1.
The memory of Anthony the New is a local Macedonian tradition, preserved at Berroia and gathered into the Greek synaxaristes. He was born, it holds, in the later tenth century, at or near Berroia, of devout and prosperous parents, and from his youth was drawn to the monastic life. He entered the Skete of Berroia — the monastery of Saint John the Forerunner in the Pierian country south of the city — and there kept up his ascetic struggle for some twenty years, growing to a mature holiness among the brethren.
Grown perfect in the common discipline, and with the blessing of his abbot, he withdrew — as Anthony the Great had withdrawn to the Inner Mountain — into deeper solitude, to a cave near the river Aliakmon (Haliacmon), so hidden as to be almost unreachable. There he lived, the tradition says, some fifty years, sustaining himself on the herbs and roots that grew about the place, seen by no one save the priest who came from time to time to give him Holy Communion, and waging the unseen war: for the demons, as in the Life of his namesake, are said to have set upon him for years, tearing at him, appearing in dreadful shapes, and labouring to break the constancy of his prayer. He overcame, and reposed in peace at the age of about ninety-four.
His body did not remain hidden. Hunters, the account says, came upon it incorrupt in the cave and brought word to the Bishop of Berroia. A dispute arose over where the relics should rest; it was resolved, the tradition holds, by laying the body upon a cart drawn by oxen, which went of its own accord to Berroia and halted before the very house of the saint's family. His relics were enshrined first in a church of the Theotokos and afterward in a church built in his own honour; when this was destroyed by fire in 1898 it was rebuilt and, in 1904, a new and greater church consecrated to him. There his memory is kept with great honour, and many are the healings ascribed to his intercession — the ground of the surname the whole tradition gives him, the Wonderworker.
Feast and commemoration
Anthony the New is commemorated on January 17 (church date; Old Calendar civil January 30), the feast of the great Anthony whose name he bears, on which the Greek Menaion joins him to his namesake; and he is honoured with a local feast at Berroia on August 1 (Old Calendar civil August 14), where his relics and his church make him one of the patrons of the city. His veneration is Greek and chiefly Macedonian.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 8
By the streams of thy tears thou didst make the wilderness to bloom, and by thy deep-drawn sighs thy labours bore fruit a hundredfold; and thou wast made a beacon to the whole world, resplendent with miracles, O Anthony our righteous father. Intercede with Christ our God, that our souls may be saved.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Anthony the New is depicted as an aged ascetic in the monastic habit, gaunt with a lifetime of fasting, his hair and beard long and white, holding a scroll and raising his hand in blessing — deliberately in the likeness of Anthony the Great, that the beholder may see why Berroia named him "the New." Behind or beside him the tradition sometimes sets his cave in the cliffs above the Aliakmon, or the church at Berroia that holds his relics. No pre-1900 icon of the saint has yet been identified in a form storable for this collection; the entry accordingly carries a description only.
Disputed questions
- Date. The sources place Anthony in the eleventh century (some reckoning from the end of the tenth), but the precise years of his birth and repose are not transmitted; the tradition is firm only that he lived long — the greater part of it in the cave — and reposed aged about ninety-four.
- Not to be confused with Anthony the Great of Egypt (†356), his namesake and model, with whom he shares the day of January 17, and after whom he is called "the New"; nor with the Russian Anthony of Dymsk (†1224), likewise kept on that day.