Euthymius the Great, Saint

EUTHYMIUS THE GREAT, Saint. - Distinguished ascetic, b. at Melitene in Armenia in 377, d. in Palestine in 473. He owes his name to the fact that his parents, asking God for a son, were exhorted by a divine voice to be of good cheer (εὐθυμία). He was educated at Melitene by the bishops Otreius and Acacius, was ordained a priest and had charge of the monasteries. Soon, however, he moved to Jerusalem (406) and, seeking solitude, lived for 5 years in the laura of Pharan, then in a cave and in several inhospitable places where the fame of his miracles forced him to withdraw. But around him new lauras always flourished, and it is for this reason that he is considered the founder of this kind of monasticism in Palestine. The church of the principal one of them, which later took the name of E., was consecrated by the patriarch Juvenal in 420. There he was on friendly terms with St. John the Silentiary, St. Cyriacus and St. Sabas. He died almost a centenarian under Leo I the Thracian.

His life was written in the 6th century by the monk Cyril, particularly esteemed by Baronius. His feast, both in the East and in the West, falls on 20 January.

He converted many "Hagarenes" to the true faith, and having joyfully learned of the condemnation of Nestorius at the Council of Ephesus I (431), he worked singularly for that of Chalcedon (451), opposing Theodosius, the pseudo-bishop Euthymian of Jerusalem, whose calumnies were creeping among the monks. To him too is due the return to the faith of the empress Eudocia, who summoned him to consult him.

Emmanuele Candel