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Saint Sabas the Sanctified 12/18/2013
The commonplace village of Moutalasca in Cappadocia became famous owing to this grand light of the Orthodox Church. Saint Sabas was born here of father John and mother Sophia. He left his parents’ house when he was eight years old and entered the local Monastery of Flavinae. After ten years, he left for the monasteries in Plaestine where the most time he dwelt at the Monastery of Saint Euthymius the Great (January 20) and the monastery of Saint Theoctistus. Saint Euthymius foretold that he would become a glorious monk and teacher of the monks and that he would found the grandest Lavra of all Lavras of all times. After the death of Saint Euthymius, Sabas withdrew to the desert, where for five years he lived as an anchorite in a cave that had been pointed to him by an angel of God. When he had attained the monastic perfection, by Divine providence around him began to gather many brothers striving for spiritual life. Before long they gathered in such numbers that Saint Sabas had to build a church and many monastic cells. Among the brethren there also came some Armenians for which he provided separate cave in which they could serve liturgies in Armenian language. Upon his father’s death, his aged mother Sophia came to him and he tonsured her a nun and gave her a cell in the vicinity of his monastery, where she led the ascetic struggle till the end of her life. This holy father suffered great many assaults from the fellow men, the heretics and the demons. Still, he conquered them all: the fellow men by meekness and humbleness, the heretics by unshakeable confession of Orthodoxy and the demons by the sign of the Cross and calling upon God’s help. Particularly violent battle he led against the demons on the hill called Castellion, where he founded his second monastery. He and his neighbour Theodosius the Great are considered the greatest lights and pillars of Orthodoxy in the East. They strengthened the faith of the Emperors and patriarchs and served to all as an example of saintly humbleness and the miraculous power of God. After his diligent and fruitful life, Saint Sabas departed this world in the year 532, at ninety-four years of age. Among other things, he established the monastery Typicon that regulates the church services which later spread across the Orthodoxy and became known as the Jerusalem Rule.
