Dometius of Philotheou
Our Venerable Father Dometius the Sign-Bearer, Ascetic within the Bounds of the Monastery of Philotheou on Mount Athos
Venerable · d. 16th century, on Mount Athos
Commemorated 7 August — Repose in peace on the Holy Mountain
Dometius, surnamed σημειοφόρος, "the sign-bearer" — the Greek epithet for an ascetic through whom God works signs — was a solitary of the Holy Mountain who lived in the wilderness within the bounds of the monastery of Philotheou and reposed in peace in the sixteenth century. He is remembered chiefly through another man: the New Martyr Damian (†1568), leaving the coenobium in search of a harder life, came and lived with him, and Damian's biographer describes his elder as "a sign-bearing man, Dometius by name," with whom the martyr spent nearly three years of fasting, vigil and hardship before going out to his own contest. Nothing else of Dometius is transmitted.
What is known
The Athonite record gives Dometius no origin, no date of birth, and no story of his own. He appears as a hesychast in the desert places of Philotheou, on the eastern slope of Athos, at some point in the sixteenth century, and as a spiritual father of sufficient standing that a monk seeking greater strictness would seek him out.
The one substantial notice comes from the life of the New Martyr Damian, and the biographer's own words are the fullest thing said of Dometius anywhere: that Damian, "reaching after a greater virtue, left the monastery and came to one of those who struggle in solitude, a sign-bearing man, Dometius by name, with whom he passed nearly three years, worn down with fasting and vigil and the rest of the hard usage of the body." The phrase σημειοφόρος — "sign-bearer," "worker of signs" — is the Greek tradition's ordinary way of marking a man reputed for wonders, and it is Dometius' standing title.
Damian left him to preach in the villages of Macedonia and Thessaly, was seized by the Turks, and after cruel tortures was burned in 1568. Dometius reposed in peace on the Mountain, and his memory was kept there on August 7.
Feast and commemoration
August 7 (church date; New Calendar civil August 7, Old Calendar civil August 20), within the afterfeast of the Transfiguration and within the Dormition fast (August 1–14). His is an Athonite local memory, kept at Philotheou and in the Greek synaxaristic tradition and carried into the OCA calendar as a single sentence; he has no service of his own, and the common of a venerable father is sung.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable father)
In thee, O father, was preserved unimpaired that which is according to the image; for taking up the cross thou didst follow Christ, and by thy deeds thou hast taught us to despise the flesh, for it passeth away, but to care for the soul, a thing immortal. Wherefore, O venerable Dometius, thy spirit rejoiceth with the angels.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Dometius is painted, where he is painted at all, as an Athonite hesychast: an elder in the great schema, long-bearded, holding a scroll, before the rocks and cells of the desert of Philotheou; as a sign-bearer he may be shown with the hand raised in blessing. He appears most naturally in the composition of the synaxis of the Athonite fathers, in the ranks behind the great founders, where he is identified only by his inscription. No pre-1900 image of him alone has been located for this repository, and the risk of confusing him with the other Athonite Dometius, of Dionysiou, is considerable.
Disputed questions
- Not to be confused with Dometius of Persia, the venerable-martyr of the fourth century who is the day's principal commemoration — the two are kept on the same day, both are monastics, and both carry the same name; the Athonite is a bare local notice, the Persian a universal feast with a proper apolytikion.
- Not to be confused with Dometius of Dionysiou, the hieromonk and fellow-ascetic of Dionysius the founder (†c. 1405, June 25), also an Athonite; nor with Dometius the Wonderworker (March 8).
- Which Damian? Damian's memory is kept on February 23 in some books and February 14 in others, and the Athonite calendar knows more than one Damian. The New Martyr Damian who was Dometius' disciple suffered in 1568 and is associated with Philotheou; he is a distinct person from Damian of Esphigmenou, the thirteenth-century hesychast of that house who reposed in peace about 1280 and is likewise kept on February 23. The coincidence of name and day is a real trap, and the Damian of this entry is the martyr of 1568.