Euthymius the Younger

Venerable Euthymius the Younger, also called Euthymius of Thessalonica, was a Byzantine monk, ascetic and hierodeacon of the ninth century, born in Asia Minor near Ancyra. The Church remembers him on 15 October (28 October on the new calendar). Our sources disagree on the year of his birth, 823 or 824, and on the year and place of his death.

Childhood and monastic tonsure

He was born at Opsikion, near Ancyra (now Ankara), in Galatia, to a wealthy and pious Christian family, and was named Nikita. One source says his father died when he was seven, and that he later entered military service. At his mother's urging he married early, but at eighteen he left his wife and daughter and became a monk on Mount Olympus in Bithynia, receiving the name Euthymius. He was sent to the cenobitic monastery of Pisidion, and afterwards lived for a time in the desert, in the stillness of prayer.

Athos, the pillar and Peristera

In 858 he received the great schema and went to Athos, where he settled beside the hermit Joseph. The two vied with each other in ascetic labours: they stood in prayer through the night, kept an unbroken fast, made frequent prostrations, slept on bare ground and spent time in a cave without fire. When news of his struggles began to spread, Euthymius hid himself on the island of Saint Eustratius, near Athos.

In 863 he returned to Thessalonica and took up the labour of the pillar. After the death of his friend Joseph he moved to Mount Peristera, east of Thessalonica, where he raised the monastery of Saint Andrew from its ruins and gathered a community. He also founded a convent, which some of his relatives entered, following his preaching. When the life of these houses was secure, he returned to Athos once more, to Vrastama.

His repose and relics

Our sources do not agree about his end. Some say he went to Palestine and died there on 15 October 898. Others give the year 889 and say he fell asleep on Athos. His relics were brought to Thessalonica and laid in the basilica of Saint Demetrius. At the end of the thirteenth century a chapel in his name was added to that basilica, built as a small three-⁠aisled basilica and painted in 1303, though its frescoes have not survived. His first Life was written by his disciple, Archbishop Basil of Thessalonica.

In Ukrainian folk tradition Saint Euthymius is prayed to against the unclean spirits that were thought to hinder women in their tasks, and 28 October is known as "Autumn Euthymius".