Conon of Penthucla

Our Venerable Father Conon, Presbyter and Baptizer, of the Monastery of Penthucla

Venerable · Priest · d. c. 555

Conon (sixth century) was a Cilician who from his youth was a monk of the monastery of Penthucla near the Jordan, ordained presbyter and appointed to baptize the many pilgrims and converts who came down to the holy river. Grievously troubled at having, by the rite, to anoint women with the holy oil, he resolved to abandon his charge and flee — until John the Baptist appeared to him and strengthened him, promising to bear the struggle for him, so that thereafter he ministered the baptism in peace and without disturbance for many years. He reposed in great old age and is commemorated on February 19.

Conon was a native of Cilicia in Asia Minor who, while still young, embraced the monastic life at the monastery called Penthucla (Πένθουκλα; also transmitted Pethucla), one of the houses of the Jordan valley in Palestine near the place of the Lord's Baptism. Ordained presbyter, and being a monk of tried holiness, he was appointed to the office of baptizing — for the Jordan monasteries received a constant stream of pilgrims and of converts from paganism, Judaism and Islam seeking the sacrament at the sacred river, and one of the priests was set apart to administer it. Conon exercised this ministry for a time, and Peter, Archbishop of Jerusalem, is said to have sent catechumens to him for baptism, so esteemed was he.

But the office laid a peculiar trial upon him. In the rite of baptism the priest must anoint the whole body of the catechumen with the holy oil, and Conon, a monk vowed to chastity, was so disquieted at having to anoint women that he determined to give up the charge and depart from the monastery altogether. As he set out to flee, the tradition relates — the story is preserved in the Spiritual Meadow of John Moschus and in the synaxaria — John the Forerunner appeared to him on the road and bade him return, promising that he himself would lighten and bear the warfare of that temptation for him. When Conon asked a sign, the Baptist made the sign of the Cross over him (or, in another form of the story, laid his hand upon him), and from that hour the passion was stilled: Conon returned, and thereafter baptized without trouble of soul all who came to him, untroubled by the flesh. He continued in this ministry, and in the ascetic life, to a great old age, and reposed in peace about the middle of the sixth century.

Feast and commemoration

February 19 (church date; New Calendar civil February 19; Old Calendar civil March 4), a synaxarion commemoration of the venerable Conon, kept in the Greek Menaion and the synaxaria. No proper service is appointed; the common of a venerable monk is used. His memory falls on the day led by the apostle Archippus and the martyr Philothei of Athens.

Hymns

Troparion — Tone 8 (from the common of a venerable one)

By a flood of tears thou didst make the barren desert bloom, and by thy deep sighing thou didst bring forth fruit a hundredfold in labours, and wast made a beacon shining upon the world by thy miracles, O Conon our father. Intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Original translation from the Greek

Iconography

No verified pre-modern image of the venerable Conon of Penthucla has been identified under a secure attribution; the entry therefore stores no icon, and he is noted as wanting one. He would be depicted as an aged monk-priest in the rasson and epitrachelion, in the type of the Jordan ascetics — and, in the narrative type proper to his story, receiving the appearance of John the Baptist by the river.

Disputed questions

Not to be confused with the several other saints named Conon of the calendar — chiefly the martyr Conon the Gardener of Mandon in Pamphylia and his son Conon the child-martyr (kept March 5/6), and Conon of Isauria — who are distinct persons of other days and other Lives. The Conon of this entry is the sixth-century Palestinian baptizer of Penthucla, known from the Spiritual Meadow.