Saint Athanasios, founder of the Great Meteoron
Saint Athanasios was born in 1302 at Hypate, the well-known medieval town of New Patras in central Greece, the son of wealthy parents who named him Andronikos at his baptism. His mother died in childbirth and his father shortly afterwards, so that the boy lost both parents in his earliest years. He was reared by relatives and showed a precocious love of learning and prayer. As a young man he came under the influence of the hesychast movement, and after a period at Thessalonica he made his way to Mount Athos, where in 1332 he was received as a novice and tonsured by Hieromonk Gregory of Sinai with the name Anthony. Later, at his tonsure into the Great Schema, he was given the name Athanasios. Seeking still greater stillness he left the Holy Mountain with two companions and was directed by a disciple of Gregory of Sinai, who had become a bishop, to travel to Thessaly. There, on the towering pinnacles of rock at Meteora, he ascended one of the highest peaks, the great rock now called the Great Meteoron, and built a small church and cells. About the year 1356 he organised the brotherhood with a strict cenobitic rule modelled on the Athonite typikon and dedicated the principal church to the Transfiguration of the Lord. He thereby became the first founder of the famous monastic confederation of Meteora. He reposed peacefully, after a short illness, about the year 1380, at the age of seventy-eight.
Saints Gregory and Anastasius, patriarchs of Antioch
593
Saints Gregory and Anastasius were patriarchs of Antioch in succession during the late sixth century. Saint Anastasius I, called the Sinaite from his sojourn on Mount Sinai before his elevation, occupied the throne of Antioch from 559 and was a vigorous defender of the faith of Chalcedon against the Monophysite party then dominant in Syria. He was deposed and exiled in 570 by the emperor Justin II for his bold opposition to a tract of crypto-Monophysite tendency which the emperor wished to impose. During his exile his place was taken by Saint Gregory, a learned monk who had been raised in Cilicia and had served as superior of the monastery of the Byzantines on Sinai before his consecration. Gregory shepherded the see through years of war, plague and earthquake, was renowned for his almsgiving and for his eloquence, and even succeeded in winning back many adherents of Monophysitism by his patient preaching. He died in 593, having drunk a draught intended to relieve gout. Anastasius was then recalled from exile by the holy emperor Maurice, at the urging of Pope Saint Gregory the Great of Rome, who was his close friend and correspondent, and he occupied the throne of Antioch a second time until his repose in 599. The two are commemorated together on this day as faithful shepherds of the apostolic see of Antioch.
St Theodore Trichinas, hermit near Constantinople
400
He was born in Constantinople to well-off and pious parents. He became a monastic in Thrace, and subjected himself to many ascetic labors, one of which was always to dress in a hair-shirt, from which he was called “Trichinas” (meaning “hairy”). He was granted the gift of working miracles, both during his lifetime and after his repose. His relics exuded a healing myrrh.
Venerable Anastasius, abbot of Sinai
Saint Anastasius of Sinai was a seventh-century monk, priest and theologian renowned for his scriptural commentaries and his defences of the doctrines of the Church. Born in the East, perhaps in Cyprus, he made a pilgrimage to the holy places of Jerusalem and afterwards took up residence as a monk at the monastery on Mount Sinai about the middle of the seventh century. He lived for an extended period under the guidance of the abbot Saint John Climacus, the author of the Ladder of Divine Ascent, and after John's repose he was himself raised to the office of abbot of the monastery of the Burning Bush, later known as the monastery of Saint Catherine. Besides being a great ascetic he was an eloquent author, leaving behind lives of saints, instructional and doctrinal writings, and a famous work known as the Hodegos, or Guide, in which he argued against the heretical Acephali and Monophysites, who rejected the decisions of the Fourth Ecumenical Council held at Chalcedon in 451. He travelled widely through Egypt, Syria and Arabia, debating with the heterodox and confirming the faithful in Orthodoxy. His preaching, his writings and his austere life made him one of the most respected teachers of the eastern Church in his age. He reposed in great old age, having served the Lord faithfully, about the year 700.
Venerable Theodore Trichinas, the hair-shirt wearer
Saint Theodore was born in Constantinople of wealthy and pious parents. From childhood he was inclined to the monastic life, and in due course he abandoned his family, his inheritance and the worldly path that lay open before him in order to enter a monastery in Thrace. There he embraced the strictest possible asceticism. He wore a coarse hair shirt next to his skin, from which he received the surname Trichinas, the "hair-shirt wearer." Spurning all bodily comfort, he slept on a hard stone instead of any bed, both to mortify the flesh and to keep himself from sleeping over much. He kept long fasts, watched through the nights in prayer and laboured in silence, conversing only with God. By his unceasing struggles against the flesh and the devil he attained great purity of heart and was granted by the Lord the gifts of healing and of casting out demons. Even after his repose, towards the end of the fourth or the beginning of the fifth century, his tomb continued to pour forth healings, and a fragrant myrrh flowed from his relics, so that his memory remained green among the faithful of Constantinople for many generations. The Orthodox Church keeps his memory on this day as a model of strict ascetic struggle.
Holy Apostle Zaccheus
This is the tax-collector Zaccheus whom Jesus called down from the tree in Jericho (Luke ch. 19). He became a faithful disciple and, after the Resurrection, a companion of the Apostle Peter. He became Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, where he served faithfully and reposed in peace.