GIOVANNI di Tella (BAR KÜRSÖS). - Monophysite writer (483-538). He became a monk after having been a soldier. Consecrated bishop of Tella in 519, he was one of the most zealous promoters of Severian Monophysitism in Syria. G. represented the Monophysites in 533 at Constantinople in the dogmatic discussions under Emperor Justinian. Upon his return to his homeland, he had to go into hiding, but was arrested, deported to Antioch, and killed. A collection of canons concerning especially the Eucharist remains from him, which is of great interest for the history of liturgy. His life was written by one of his companions named Elias and by John of Asia.
GIOVANNI (TERTISTI) «μετριτός» (reaper), the healed. - Basilian monk of the 11th century, born in Palermo to Calista, who had been deported by the Saracens from Stilo, while his father had been killed on the spot. In adulthood he went to Calabria, where he received Baptism and was initiated into the rigors of Greek monastic asceticism under the guidance of the blessed Ambrose and Nicholas at a monastery in Stilo, which was later dedicated to his name and became one of the most famous in Calabria. His virtue and ascetic rigors were compared to those of St. John the Baptist.
The abbot, to humble him, put him to reap with the laborers, whence his appellation of Teristi. The date of death fixed by the Bollandists at 1127 is unacceptable, because in a charter of 1110 Count Roger makes donations to the “temple of our holy father John.” Moreover, in codex Vat. lat. 2008 there is preserved a hymn in his honor composed by St. Bartholomew of Rossano, who died around 1050. Evidently the Bollandists’ date must be anticipated by almost a century.