Venerable Gerasimus of the Jordan

Gerasimus came from Lycia in Asia Minor, lived as a monk in the Egyptian Thebaid, and settled by the Jordan near Jericho late in the reign of Theodosius II. During the disputes after the Council of Chalcedon (451) he briefly sided with its opponents, but, according to Cyril of Scythopolis, Euthymius the Great won him back.

His monastery near the river trained novices, and some seventy hermits lived in cells around it: five days a week alone on bread, dates and water, without fire, and on Saturday and Sunday together for the liturgy. The best-known story, told by John Moschus, is of a lion from whose paw Gerasimus pulled a thorn; named Jordan, it served the monastery and, the story says, died grieving on his grave. Gerasimus died in 475.