Faustus of Dalmatia

Holy Venerable Faustus of Dalmatia was abbot of the Dalmatian monastery, together with the holy Isaac and Dalmatus. His father Dalmatus had served in the army of the pious Emperor Theodosius the Great (379 to 395), who esteemed him. Leaving the world, between 381 and 383 Dalmatus went with his son Faustus to the monastery of the Venerable Isaac near Constantinople. Isaac tonsured both as monks, and they led a strict ascetic life. Once, in Great Lent, Dalmatus went forty days without food, and then, strengthened, remained in rapture until the feast of the Ascension of the Lord, granted divine visions. Near the end of his life, in 383, Isaac appointed Dalmatus abbot in his place, and after him the monastery came to be called the Dalmatian.

Dalmatus was a zealous defender of the Orthodox faith at the Third Ecumenical Council at Ephesus (431), which condemned the heresy of Nestorius. After the Council the Fathers raised him to the rank of archimandrite of the monastery, in which he died at the age of ninety, after 446.

Of the Venerable Faustus it is known that, like his father, he was a great ascetic, and of the monastic labours he excelled especially in fasting. After the death of his father he became abbot of the monastery. He is commemorated on 16 August (new style), together with Isaac and Dalmatus. Their story was also written down by Saint Demetrius of Rostov.