ESICHIO L'ASCETA, saint. - An anchorite of the eighth century, easily confused with his namesake called “the Tannaturga”; perhaps for this reason his feast (6 March) is not consistently observed in the various Churches of the Syrians, Copts, and Greeks.
Very little is known about him. A native of the region of Andrzepa near Ancira in Pontus, he sought solitude on Mount Malone, not far from Adrenia in Bithynia, where he erected an oratory to the apostle St. Andrew. Warned by an angel of the approach of death, he terrified those present with the fear of hell, but ended his life, full of miracles, in great peace, radiant with divine splendour, while Constantine VI reigned together with his mother Irene, thus between 780 and 797. His body, first buried before the iconostasis (of the oratory of St. Andrew), was later (808) transferred near the altar by Theophylact, bishop of Amasia.
Of interest to historians is the discovery and use of the wholly worn manuscript from which the Greek Synaxarion derived these facts.