Thomas of Mount Maleon
Our Venerable Father Thomas, who ascetised on Mount Maleon
Venerable · Wonderworker · d. 10th century
Commemorated 7 July — Repose on Mount Maleon in Laconia
Thomas of Mount Maleon was a Byzantine officer — a commander of troops, strong, brave, and much honoured for his victories — who at the height of his career laid down his arms, was tonsured a monk, and turned the whole force of a soldier's discipline against the passions. After learning obedience under experienced elders he was blessed to withdraw into the wilderness, and was led (the tradition says by the Prophet Elias, who appeared to him on the way) to Mount Maleon, the mountain of the great Laconian promontory at the southern tip of the Peloponnese, whose earlier ascetics he imitated. There he lived in solitude, was granted the gift of healing, and became a father to the crowds who found their way to his cell. He reposed in the tenth century, and his memory is kept on July 7; he is held in particular honour in Laconia, and his relics are treasured in the Metropolis of Monemvasia and Sparta.
The commander
The synaxarion introduces Thomas first as a man of war. He was a military commander of the Roman (Byzantine) armies — "strong and brave," in the words of the notice, who "took part in many battles" and was decorated with honours for his successes in the field. Nothing in the surviving account suggests a defeat or a disgrace that drove him out of the world; it was rather at the summit of his reputation that he came to see the emptiness of what he had won. The synaxarist makes the contrast deliberately: a man practised in the marshalling of ranks and the taking of cities turned that same practised will upon himself.
He gave up his command, distributed what he had, and was tonsured, entering the monastic life not as a distinguished patron but as a beginner. This is the pattern the tradition insists on for the soldier-saints who become monks — Thomas placed himself under the direction of experienced elders, and for years did the ordinary work of a novice, learning that obedience is a harder discipline than campaigning, and that the enemy within is less easily routed than the enemy in the field.
Mount Maleon
When his elders judged him ready, Thomas received the blessing to withdraw into complete solitude. The account preserves a striking detail of the journey: the Prophet Elias appeared to him and directed him to the mountain that was to be his, and Thomas took the Prophet — the archetype of the hesychast, fed in the wilderness and rapt in the fire of God — as the model of his own life. The mountain was Maleon, the high, dry ridge that runs out to Cape Maleas at the south-eastern tip of Laconia, a place already inhabited by ascetics and known for the severity of its silence.
There Thomas lived alone. The synaxarion describes his warfare in the terms of his old profession: he "fought" the demons and the thoughts with the same energy and endurance that had made him formidable in battle, and he prevailed. The Lord gave him discernment and the grace of healing; and, as always happens to those who successfully hide themselves, his hiddenness became famous. The sick were carried to him and were cured, the troubled came for a word, and the mountain that he had chosen for solitude became a place of pilgrimage. He received them all, prayed for them, and sent them away instructed. He reposed in peace in the tenth century.
Veneration in Laconia
Thomas's cult is intensely local and has never faded. His relics are kept in the Metropolis of Monemvasia and Sparta, and he is venerated throughout Laconia as one of the fathers of the Peloponnesian desert, alongside the ascetics of Maleon and of the Parnon range. Chapels and mountain hermitages of the Cape Maleas peninsula bear his name, and the memory of the "soldier who became a hermit" is kept in the region's oral tradition as firmly as in the printed synaxarion.
Feast and commemoration
July 7 (church date; Old Calendar civil July 20). Thomas heads the day in the Greek and Slavonic synaxaria, where he is named before the other commemorations of July 7 — Acacius of Sinai, whose second feast falls today, and Kyriaki of Nicomedia. The Antiochian and Greek usage keeps him as a simple commemoration; in the Metropolis of Monemvasia and Sparta, which holds his relics, the day is kept with festal solemnity.
Hymns
Apolytikion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable father)
In thee, O Father, was preserved unfailingly that which is according to the image; for taking up thy 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 Thomas, thy spirit rejoiceth with the angels.
Kontakion — Tone 2
Having laid aside the weapons of earthly warfare and taken up the armour of the Spirit, thou didst ascend the mountain of Maleon as another Elias, O God-bearing Thomas; and having conquered the passions by silence and prayer, thou wast shown forth a fountain of healings. Wherefore we cry to thee: intercede with Christ God for our souls.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Thomas is painted as an elderly monastic, in the schema and mantle, with a long pointed beard, either standing at full length with a scroll in his hand or shown bust-length in the July menaion panels among the saints of the seventh day. Where the iconographer wishes to distinguish him from the many venerable Thomases, the attribute used is the Prophet Elias appearing above the mountain and pointing him to his place of struggle — the incident from his life — or, less often, the discarded soldier's arms laid at the foot of the mountain, marking the commander who became a hermit. In the churches of Laconia he appears among the local fathers, with the sea and the promontory of Maleas indicated behind him.
No pre-1900 icon showing him alone has been located for this collection; the only Commons-hosted candidate is a seventeenth-century menaion panel for July, in which the individual figures cannot be securely identified.
Disputed questions
- Date. The synaxaria assign Thomas to the tenth century without giving a year, an emperor, or the name of his monastery; a minority of notices push him back into the ninth. Nothing in the account fixes him more precisely, and this entry follows the majority reading (10th century) while recording the uncertainty.
- Which Maleon? The name has occasionally been confused with Mount Athos, because the Athonite peninsula also carries a promontory tradition and because later copyists glossed obscure toponyms with famous ones. The saint's cult, his relics, and every Peloponnesian source place him on the Laconian Maleon by Cape Maleas.
- Not to be confused with Thomas the Apostle (October 6); with Thomas of Bithynia, Thomas Dephourkinos (December 10), also a tenth-century ascetic and wonderworker, with whom the similarity of period and gifts makes confusion easy; with Thomas of Constantinople; or with Thomas the Fool of Syria.