Malus the Hermit
Our Venerable Father Malus
Venerable
Commemorated 16 October
Malus (or Malos) is a venerable hermit known to the Church from a single line of the Greek synaxarion for October 16, where his memory is kept after that of Longinus the Centurion. Nothing of his time, his country, or his labours is transmitted — only his name, his rank among the venerable monastics, and the couplet the synaxarist gave him: leaving the brief sojourn of earth, he now inhabits the long dwelling-place of heaven. His commemoration survives in the Greek synaxarion tradition; the Slavic calendars of the day do not carry him.
The record of Malus is one synaxarion line, and this entry keeps to it. The Synaxarion of Constantinople, followed by the Greek Menaion, sets down for October 16 "the memory of our venerable father Malus," with the distich: "Malus, leaving the brief sojourn of earth, inhabits the long habitation of heaven." His place among the ὅσιοι — the venerable monastics — and the peaceful imagery of the verses indicate a hermit who ended his ascetic life in peace; where he lived it, and in what century, the tradition does not say. No date is transmitted, and none is asserted here.
Feast and commemoration
October 16 (church date; Old Calendar civil October 29), in the Greek synaxarion of the day, after the notices of Longinus the Centurion, the two soldiers martyred with him, and the martyrs Leontius, Dometius, Terentius and Domninus. The commemoration is transmitted in the Greek tradition; the OCA and Russian calendar pages for the day, checked live, do not list him. No proper service is appointed; the common of a venerable is used where his memory is kept liturgically.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 8 (from the common of a venerable)
With the streams of thy tears thou didst till the barren desert, and with sighings from the depths thou madest thy labours bear fruit an hundredfold, and becamest a beacon to the whole world, shining with miracles: O Malus our venerable father, intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
No icon of Malus is known to this collection: the Menologion of Basil II transmits only the Longinus miniature for October 16 (verified by autopsy of the Vatican digitisation), and no later portrait tradition has been found. A hermit of the synaxarion type would be painted as an aged monastic in the schema, and any future image would follow that convention.