Helladius of Kellia

Holy Venerable Helladius of Kellia was a hermit in the desert of Kellia in Egypt. The exact time of his life is not known. An account of him is found in the Apophthegmata Patrum, a collection formed in the fourth and fifth centuries, from which it is known that Helladius laboured twenty years at Kellia, that he never raised his eyes and ate only bread with salt.

The commemoration and verses for the saint are placed in the Greek verse synaxaria, which led to their inclusion in the printed Greek Menaion and later in the Synaxaristes of Saint Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain. When the South Slavs translated the verse synaxarion in the fourteenth century, the couplet dedicated to Helladius, saying that though Helladius departed this life he remained an example of virtuous living, entered the verse Prologue and then the Great Menaia.

He is commemorated on 13 March, in the Synaxis of all the Venerable Fathers who shone forth in ascetic labour, a day that moves in the calendar.