Ven. Euthymius the Great

Born in Melitene in Armenia and ordained young, he slipped away to the Holy Land in 405 and settled in the desert between Jerusalem and Jericho. The lavra that grew around his cell became a school of sanctity: his disciples included St Sabbas the Sanctified and generations of Palestinian monks whose lives Cyril of Scythopolis later recorded — our main and generally sober source for Euthymius himself. He evangelized Arab tribes of the region, whose chieftain's family he healed and baptized, leading to the creation of a bishopric for the tent-dwellers. After the Council of Chalcedon in 451 he was one of its firmest defenders in a rebellious Palestine, and it was largely his quiet persuasion that brought the empress Eudocia back from the Monophysite party into the communion of the Church. He reposed in 473, nearly a century old.