Ven. Theodosius the Great

Born in Cappadocia, he came to the Holy Land as a young man and settled in the Judean desert east of Bethlehem. Around a cave traditionally linked with the Magi he gathered a community that grew into the largest cenobium in Palestine — hundreds of monks praying in Greek, Georgian, and Armenian, with hospices for the sick, the aged, and the mentally ill attached to the monastery. The patriarch of Jerusalem appointed him archimandrite of all the cenobitic monks of Palestine, while his friend St Sabbas the Sanctified led the hermits; the two great elders worked in harmony for decades. When the emperor Anastasius pressed a Monophysite confession on the Church, the aged Theodosius publicly defended the Council of Chalcedon, accepting exile rather than silence. He reposed in 529, reportedly at about a hundred and five years old, and his monastery still bears his name.