{"id":10535,"date":"2021-11-30T05:00:48","date_gmt":"2021-11-30T10:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stpeterorthodoxchurch.com\/?p=10535"},"modified":"2021-11-30T05:00:48","modified_gmt":"2021-11-30T10:00:48","slug":"st-peter-news-november-30-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stpeterorthodoxchurch.com\/st-peter-news-november-30-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Peter News November 30, 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tenth Sunday of Luke
\nThe God-bearing Father Sabbas the Sanctified <\/h2>\n

Venerable-Martyr Stephen the New, Martyr Irinarchos of Sebastia and those with him<\/h4>\n

Who was the God-bearing Father Sabbas the Sanctified?<\/h2>\n
\n\"God-bearing\n<\/div>\n

Today, the fifth of December, is the feast-day of Saint Sabbas, one of the great monastic fathers of the Middle East in Late Antiquity. Saint Sabbas, who in the Orthodox Church is often known by his cognomen ‘the Sanctified’, established the Dayr M\u00e2r S\u00e2b\u00e2, one of the holiest and most visited monastic houses in the Holy Land, which to this day continues as a shining jewel of the Jerusalem Patriarchate. He is venerated throughout the Holy Land and throughout the Orthodox Church.<\/p>\n

Saint Sabbas was born to Cappadocian Greek parents, Ioannes and Sophia, in Moutalaski – which is in the modern-day Talas district in the Turkish province of Kayseri (C\u00e6sarea) – in the year 439. His father, Ioannes, was a commander in the Roman Army, who was placed on assignment in Alexandria when the future Sabbas was about five years old. His father left the boy in the care and tutelage of a kinswoman named Hermia. Unfortunately, Hermia was something of a weak governess. The boy’s uncles were given free reign over his property and fell to squabbling over it. As a result, he was sent into the monastery of Saint Flavian and given to the monks to study. When his father returned three years later, the boy had already renounced the world and had dedicated himself to the celibate service of God. Though his parents entreated and begged him to return to s\u00e6cular life and marriage and siring children, the young Sabbas adamantly insisted that he stay with the monks.<\/p>\n

In particular, he loved reading from the Psalter. He performed all that was asked of him without complaint, even the menial duties, and loved the sixty-five monastic brethren with whom he lived, seeking to learn from each of them. In being the servant of all, he became the greatest among them. He acquired the virtues and held onto them like precious gems: sobriety, obedience and humility. So great was his virtue as a monk that he worked wonders even as a young man. At one time a baker left his clothing in a red-hot oven. Sabbas went into the oven to fetch the clothes, first making the holy sign of the Cross; he came out of the oven unscathed.<\/p>\n

When he was fifteen or sixteen years old, he went to the abbot of Saint Flavian’s and asked his leave to undertake a pilgrimage into the Holy City, there to take up another monastic abode. After a probation of two years, his request was granted, and he went into Jerusalem, staying at the monastery of Saint Passarion that winter. The abbot at Saint Passarion’s, Elpidios, asked Sabbas to stay with them in that monastery, but Sabbas asked and was granted permission to seek out instruction from Euthymios who lived nearby, and who understood the path of hesychasm.<\/p>\n

Saint Euthymios received Saint Sabbas in his own monastery, and treated him with great warmth and hospitality, but he forbade him to stay there, and instead recommended him to the care of his friend Saint Theoktistos. His reasoning for this seems to have been that he did not want to set the precedent for accepting teenagers into the c\u0153nobitic life. Whatever his reason, however, Saint Sabbas obeyed the word of Euthymios as though it were the word of God Himself, and went and subjected himself to whatever discipline Theoktistos sought to lay upon him. He served in the community of Saint Theoktistos for ten years longer until the age of thirty, in fasting and vigil and prayer, and showed great love for his monastic brethren, as well as great skill and diligence in holding the Divine Liturgy and the monastic hours.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Read the entire history on the Heavy Anglophile Orthodox<\/a> website.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Services This Week<\/h2>\n