Adam of Sinai

The Venerable Martyr Adam of Sinai is one of the hermit fathers killed by Saracens at Sinai and Raithu, on the shore of the Red Sea. His name stands in the list of saints commemorated together on 27 January, and the sources say nothing about his own life.

The fathers of Sinai and Raithu lived in monasteries and caves near the mountain where God gave the commandments through Moses. They kept a severe rule: all week they stayed silent in their cells, on Saturday they gathered for the vigil, and on Sunday they received the holy Mysteries. They ate only dates and water. Many of them received the gift of working wonders, among them the elders Moses and Joseph.

The first slaying took place around the year 312. It was described by the Egyptian monk Ammonius, an eyewitness of the death of forty fathers of Sinai; at Raithu the Arabs killed thirty-⁠nine at that time. The second slaying came a hundred years later and was told by Saint Nilus the Ascetic, who escaped as if by a miracle.

The service names Isaiah, Sabbas, Moses, Moses his disciple, Jeremiah, Paul, Adam, Sergius, Domnus, Proclus, Hypatius, Isaac, Macarius, Mark, Benjamin, Eusebius and Elias. The saints are remembered on 27 January, in a synaxis of the fathers of Sinai, and on 5 May.