Damian of Esphigmenou
Our Venerable Father Damian the Hesychast of Esphigmenou
Venerable · b. 13th century — d. c. 1280
Commemorated 23 February — Repose of Damian the hesychast of Esphigmenou
Damian (thirteenth century, † c. 1280) was a hesychast of the Monastery of Esphigmenou on Mount Athos, a disciple of the elder Cosmas who, after his teacher's repose, withdrew to the neighbouring wilderness of Mount Samareia and there passed his life in stillness, prayer, and extreme asceticism. He is honoured among the venerable fathers of the Holy Mountain, and the tradition tells that at his death a sweet fragrance filled the region for many days as a sign of his sanctity. He is commemorated on February 23.
The transmitted life of Damian is brief, in the manner of the Athonite synaxaria. He lived in the thirteenth century as a monk of Esphigmenou, one of the ancient houses on the north-eastern coast of the Holy Mountain, and became the disciple of a hesychast named Cosmas, under whom he was schooled in the discipline of inner prayer and stillness (hesychia). When his elder reposed, Damian withdrew from the community into the surrounding desert of the mountain — the tradition names Mount Samareia near the monastery — and there gave himself wholly to the ascetic life, to vigil, fasting, and unceasing prayer, in the manner of the Athonite solitaries.
He is remembered as a man of deep prayer and severe abstinence, granted the peace of the hesychasts; and the tradition holds that when he reposed, about the year 1280, a wonderful fragrance poured out from the place of his death and lingered over the mountain for many days — the sign, in Athonite hagiography, of a soul received into glory. He is numbered among the venerable fathers of Mount Athos and kept on February 23.
Feast and commemoration
February 23 (church date; Old Calendar civil March 8), kept in the Greek and Athonite synaxaria and by the OCA, together with the hieromartyr Polycarp of Smyrna, who leads the day. His liturgical service, where kept, is supplied from the common of a venerable father.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 8 (from the common of a venerable father)
In thee, O Father, was the divine image kept secure; for taking up thy cross thou didst follow Christ, and by thy deeds thou didst teach us to despise the flesh, for it passes away, but to care for the soul, a thing immortal. Therefore doth thy spirit rejoice with the Angels, O venerable Damian.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Damian is depicted as an Athonite ascetic in the monastic schema, bearded and worn with fasting, holding a scroll or a cross, in the settled type of the venerable fathers of the Holy Mountain. No pre-modern icon identified with certainty as Damian of Esphigmenou has been located for storage in this reference; the iconographic type is described here in prose.
Disputed questions
- "Venerable," not "martyr." Damian of Esphigmenou is a hesychast and venerable father, not a martyr; some lists, by confusion with a like-named Athonite, style him a new-martyr. He is to be distinguished from Damian the monastic-martyr of Philotheou, a disciple of Saint Dometius from the village of Richovon, who suffered as a new-martyr and is also commemorated on February 23 (see February 23, Pending entries); and from the fifth-century Damian of the Syrian desert ascetics kept the same day. Three distinct saints named Damian fall on February 23.
- The dates. Neither Damian's birth nor his repose is precisely transmitted; he is placed in the thirteenth century and his death set about 1280. The reference gives the dates with "c."