St. Euthymius

St. Euthymius the Great was born in 377 at Melitene in Armenia (in modern Turkey), and died in 473 in the Judean desert of Palestine. Ordained a priest and given charge of the monasteries of his home city, he left it all around the age of thirty to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and to embrace the solitary life in the wilderness near Jerusalem, seeking God in silence and severe asceticism.

Disciples were drawn to his holiness, and he became one of the founding fathers of Palestinian monasticism, establishing lavras — settlements of hermits living near one another under a common rule — in the Judean desert; among those he formed in the monastic life was the young St. Sabbas. Renowned for miracles and for his gift of guiding souls, he also labored for the conversion of nomadic Arab tribes and stood firmly for the orthodox faith of Chalcedon. He is venerated as a saint and a pioneer of the monastic life in the Holy Land.