Almoutran

John, Sergius, Patrick  and The Slain Fathers of the St. Saba Monastery

 March 20^th 

They lived in an age of fear.  They lived during a time when fierce marauders – the dreaded Saracens from the heathen world of Arabia – wandered the landscape of Palestine, destroying monasteries and butchering the defenseless Christian monks who inhabited them.

In the Year of Our Lord 796, in a monastery on the outskirts of the Holy City of Jerusalem, the monks were eating a simple meal of bread and soup during Great Lent, when they heard the sound of the distant horses and understood the worst.

For the 41 Holy Fathers who inhabited this renowned Monastery of St. Saba in Palestine, the nightmare had arrived at last.

The Saracens had come for them.

Their beloved Abbot, a gentle-hearted but valorous monk named Father Thomas, was the first to speak.  In a calm and thoughtful voice, he reminded them that service to God sometimes requires holy martyrdom . . . and that martyrdom is actually a precious gift.  Had not their Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus, paid the same price while shedding His blood in order to redeem the world from sin and death?

“We have fled from the world into this wilderness for the sake of our love for Christ,” said Father Thomas in words like these, while the assembled monastics nodded grimly back at him, “and it would be shameful if we fled from the wilderness out of fear of men!  If we are slain here, we will be slain because of our love for Christ, for Whose cause we came to live here.”

And so it was decided: The stouthearted monks would not run.  Instead, they waited together calmly, praying and meditating and encouraging each other, until the sound of the horses and the rattling of swords and sabers drew near.  Led by a few brave individuals whose actions in the event that followed would bring honor to TAKEN FROM

themselves and praise to Almighty God – the Blessed Martyrs John, Sergius and Patrick, among others – the monks of St. Saba were fully prepared to endure the worst violence that human beings can confront.

They had no illusions about what was coming, for the Saracens’ reputation had preceded them.  As later described in such classic literary works as the medieval Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland), the Saracens (the Arabic-based word means “The Easterners”) were an extremely formidable threat to the monasteries, because of the fierce hatred they felt for everything Christian.

Soon the slaughter was fully underway.  While some of the brigands amused themselves by firing arrows into the unarmed brothers, others flailed away with swords and spears.  After a number of the monastics had been beheaded, the rest were forced into a narrow cave near their settlement.  While they waited helplessly, the invaders lit a great fire and sent the smoke billowing into the underground enclosure.  The monks died of suffocation, one by one.  They died under the reign of the Byzantine rulers Constantine and Irene, during an era in which the great St. Elias was Patriarch of Jerusalem. 

But the ways of the Lord are exceedingly mysterious, and impossible to comprehend.  No sooner had the blood-spattered Saracens returned to their tents than they fell into a series of vicious arguments over the division of their spoils.  In the brutal melee that followed, many died – and the others were left to spend their days nursing hideous wounds.

The honor roll of the dead that day has not been forgotten.  St. John, a young monk who did not yet even have a beard, was beaten savagely.  Then the barbarians cut through the tendons that connected his hands and feet to his upper extremities.  When they dragged him across the stones of the monastery, the skin peeled away from his back in great swatches of bleeding flesh.  St. Sergius, who had been in charge of caring for the sacred vessels of the church, tried desperately to protect the chalices and cruets and other priceless implements from the rapacity of the Infidels.  He was quickly beheaded for his trouble.

A few minutes later, when the remaining monks were being suffocated in their cave, St. Patrick uttered a command that would be long remembered.  “Fear not,” he told his terrified comrades, “I alone on your behalf will emerge [from the cave] and meet my death.  Meanwhile, sit ye and pray.”  A moment later, he stepped out into the bright sunlight of an afternoon in Palestine . . . and met his fate.  When the Saracens demanded to know if anyone else still lived in the underground cavern, the great saint insisted that he had been alone.  In the end, he failed to save his friends – but he gave his life in the attempt, and was quickly beheaded.

The lives of the Forty-One Martyrs who died at St. Saba on that afternoon in Palestine were blessed in two different ways.  First, by dying for the Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ, the monks who refused to run away in cowardice glorified Almighty God in a miraculous manner – by offering Him their very blood.  And second, their heroic martyrdom served as an inspiration to all the generations who would come after them.  To this day, when struggling with the storms and struggles of daily life, Christians call upon the strength of Sts. John, Sergius and Patrick!

Apolytikion in the Second Tone

Blessed is the earth that drank your blood, O prizewinners of the Lord, and holy are the tabernacles that received your spirits; for in the stadium ye triumphed over the enemy, and ye proclaimed Christ with boldness. Beseech Him, we pray, since He is good, to save our souls.

Kontakion in the Fourth Tone

Shunning all earthly and corruptible pleasures, ye chose a life of great ascetical struggles, disdaining worldly beauty and all fleeting fame; wherefore, ye dwell joyously in the Kingdom of Heaven with the Martyrs' holy choirs and the ranks of ascetics. Hence, we revere your memory and cry: “From every peril, O Fathers, deliver us.”