Ammonas

Venerable Ammonas (also called Ammon or Ammonius) was an anchorite, monk and Desert Father, born around the beginning of the fourth century, a disciple of Anthony the Great and of Pambo. He is a saint in the Orthodox Church. Many of his sayings are found in eleven sections of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers. The Prologue of Ohrid of Saint Nikolai Velimirovich commemorates him as "Ammon" on 10 January and mentions his fourteen-⁠year struggle in Scetis against anger.

He withdrew into the Egyptian desert with his three brothers and two sisters, to draw nearer to God, and spent fourteen years in Scetis. He was Anthony's trusted disciple and succeeded him at the head of the monastery on the Outer Mountain, Pispir, after Anthony moved away in 305. Timothy, bishop of Alexandria, heard of him and wished to ordain him; Ammonas refused and, it is said, mutilated his body to escape ordination. The historical record is contradictory; it appears that he was nevertheless ordained a bishop. At least two epistles of the third or fourth century are attributed to him, translated into Syriac (regarded as the most reliable), Latin and Greek, preserved among the letters and exhortations of Anthony. Ammonas is said to have fallen asleep at the beginning of the fifth century and, according to Palladius, was buried in a chapel called Rufinianae.

Among his sayings: "The 'narrow and hard way' (Mt 7:14) is this: to control your thoughts, and to strip yourself of your own will, for the sake of God"; "Sit in your cell and eat a little every day, keeping the word of the publican always in your heart, and you may be saved".