Orthodox · † 532
Venerable Sabbas the Sanctified
Commemorated: December 18 (December 5, Old Style)
Life
Sabbas was born in 439 in the village of Mutalaska in Cappadocia and entered a monastery as a boy. At about eighteen he went to Palestine, where Euthymius the Great received him. In 478 he settled in a cave in the Kidron gorge between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea; disciples gathered, and the Great Lavra grew up there. Still inhabited today, it is known as Mar Saba.
In 494 the patriarch of Jerusalem made him archimandrite over the hermits of Palestine. Twice he traveled to Constantinople, to the emperors Anastasius and Justinian, on behalf of the Church and people of Palestine. He died at 93 on 5 December 532. His Life was written by Cyril of Scythopolis, and the Jerusalem order of services took shape in his monastery.
Places
- Place of birth: Kayseri
- Place of death: Holy Lavra of Saint Sabbas
Retold briefly in our own words from: Butler’s Lives of the Saints; the Roman Martyrology (1916).
The commemorations of the day: Ponomar (ponomar.net), CC BY-SA 3.0.
Places and years: Wikidata (CC0), each saint matched by hand.