Domnus of Sinai

Holy Venerable Martyr Domnus of Sinai is counted among the venerable fathers killed at Sinai and Raithu, who are commemorated together. In their service they are named Isaiah, Sabbas, Moses, his disciple another Moses, Jeremiah, Paul, Adam, Sergius, Domnus, Proclus, Hypatius, Isaac, Macarius, Mark, Benjamin, Eusebius and Elias.

These fathers laboured in the monasteries and caves of Mount Sinai, where God gave the ten commandments through Moses, and in the desert of Raithu on the shore of the Red Sea. They suffered at the hands of Saracens and Blemmyes, nomadic Arab tribes. The first slaughter took place around the year 312 and was described by the Egyptian monk Ammonius, an eyewitness of the death of forty Sinai fathers; at the same time the Arabs killed thirty-⁠nine fathers at Raithu. The second slaughter came a hundred years later and was described by Saint Nilus the Ascetic, an eyewitness who escaped by a miracle.

The Sinai and Raithu ascetics led a very strict life: all week they remained in their cells in silence, on Saturday they gathered for the vigil, and on Sunday they received the Holy Mysteries. They ate only dates and water. Many of the hermits were renowned as wonderworkers, among them the elders Moses and Joseph.

They are commemorated on 14 January, old style, that is 27 January in the new style, and in the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of Sinai.