Thursday {Holy Apostles} December 5th 2014 {Ecumenical / Church Calendar} December 18th 2014 [World Calendar] Commemoration of Holy Venerable Sabbas the Sanctified {532} 28th Week after Pentecost. Tone Two Nativity Fast, Fish Allowed The Monk Sava the Sanctified was born in the fifth century at Cappadocia of pious Christian parents, named John and Sophia. His father was a military-commander. Journeying off to Alexandria on service related matters, his wife went with him, but their five year old son they left in the care of an uncle. When the boy reached eight years of age, he entered the Monastery of Holy Flavian situated nearby. The gifted child quickly learned to read and became well studied in Holy Scripture. And in vain then did his parents urge Holy Sava to return to the world and enter into marriage. At seventeen years of age he accepted Monastic Tonsure and so prospered in fasting and prayer, that he was bestown the gift of Wonderworking. Having spent ten years at the Monastery of Holy Flavian, the Monk set off to Jerusalem, and from there to the Monastery of the Monk Euthymios the Great. But the Monk Euthymios sent off Holy Sava to Abba Theoktistos, the head of a nearby Monastery with a strict common-life Monastic rule. The Monk Sava dwelt at this monastery as an obedient until age thirty. After the death of the Monastic-Elder Theoktistos, his successor gave blessing to the Monk Sava to seclude himself within a cave: on Saturdays however the Monk left his hermitage and came to the Monastery, where he participated in Divine-Services and partook of food. And after a certain while they gave permission to the Monk not to leave his hermitage at all, and Holy Sava asceticised within the cave over the course of five years. The Monk Euthymios attentively oversaw the life of the young Monk, and seeing how he had matured spiritually, he began to take him along with him to the Ruv wilderness at the Dead Sea. They went out on the fourteenth of January and remained there until Palm Sunday. The Monk Euthymios called Holy Sava a Child-Elder and took care to encourage in him growth in the utmost Monastic Virtues. When the Monk Euthymios expired to the Lord, Holy Sava withdrew from the Laura-Monastery and resettled in a cave near the Monastery of the Monk Gerasimos of Jordan. After several years disciples began to gather to the Monk Sava, all searching for Monastic life. There thus arose the Great Laura Monastery. Through a command from above in a pillar of fire the Monks built a Church in the cave. The Monk Sava founded several more Monasteries. Many a Miracle was manifest through the prayers of the Monk Sava: amidst the Laura spouted forth a spring of water, during a time of drought it rained in abundance, and there likewise occurred healings of the sick and the demoniac. The Monk Sava composed the first Monastic-rule of Church Services, the so-called Jerusalem Rule, accepted by all the Palestine Monasteries. The Saint reposed peacefully to God in the year 532. The Scripture Readings Luke 6:17-23 {Matins Gospel} Galatians 5:22-6:2 Matthew 11:27-30
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 08:53:40 +0000
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