Peter the Hermit of Galatia

Peter came from Galatia, in the heart of Asia Minor — some accounts, followed by the OCA synaxarion, place his origins toward the Black Sea coast and have him turn to the ascetic life as a child of seven, journeying first through Galatia and then to Palestine, where he venerated the holy places of the Lord's earthly life. From Palestine he came to the region of Antioch on the Orontes, and there he settled for the rest of his long life, taking up his dwelling — Theodoret says — in a tomb or rock-hewn cell outside the city, that he might live as one already dead to the world.

His asceticism was of the simplest and severest kind: a single coarse garment in all weathers, a little bread and water taken at long intervals, unbroken prayer and stillness. He sought no disciples and no renown, but the grace that rested on him could not be hidden, and the people of Antioch came to him for counsel and for healing. Theodoret of Cyrrhus, the great historian and bishop, devotes the ninth chapter of his Religious History (the Philotheos Historia) to Peter, and his witness is not hearsay but memory: as a child Theodoret was brought to the old ascetic, and he records that Peter healed his mother of a grievous ailment of the eyes, and tells of other cures and wonders that he either saw or learned from those who did. It is this first-hand testimony of so grave a historian that gives Peter's life its unusual solidity among the hermits of the age.

He lived to a great age — the tradition reckons about ninety-nine years — and reposed in peace near Antioch about the year 429. His memory was kept in the churches of Syria and passed into the Byzantine synaxaria, which honour him among the venerable fathers on February 1. (The Slavic calendars give him the epithet "the Silent," for the stillness — hesychia — that was the mark of his life.)

• Not to be confused with the several other saints named Peter connected with Galatia in the calendars — in particular a same-named ascetic remembered as a former soldier — nor with the Apostle. This Peter is the hermit-healer of Theodoret's Religious History. (No entry for the others yet exists in this reference; the note is recorded here so a future entry carries the reciprocal distinction, and so that the "Peter of Galatia" commemorated by some books in the autumn can be reconciled with this February 1 father when authored.)