Hesychius of Horeb

Blessed Hesychius of Horeb, a venerable one, was a hesychast monk of the sixth and seventh centuries, of Mount Horeb. Saint John Climacus tells of him in the "Ladder". He is commemorated on 4 July (a movable day), in the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of Athos, and on 16 October, in new style.

He lived as a hermit on Mount Horeb, near the monastery of the Holy Great Martyr Catherine on Sinai, but in his youth he was careless about the salvation of his soul. One day he fell so gravely ill that he lay between life and death and had a terrifying vision. Recovering, he walled up the door of his cell and for twelve years spoke to none of the brethren. He wept for his sins, "terrified and lamenting over what he had seen in the time of his rapture". Shortly before his death the monks broke open the entrance to the cell and asked the blessed one to tell them of his vision. He spoke only one sentence: "Forgive me. He who has acquired the remembrance of death can never sin."

He was buried in the cemetery near the monastery of Saint Catherine. After a time the brethren opened the grave and no longer found the ascetic's remains in it. The Lord thus showed Hesychius's zealous and praiseworthy repentance and assured us that He receives also those who wish to amend after much carelessness. A witness of these events was Venerable John Climacus († 649).

In the Greek calendars the commemoration of Hesychius of Horeb is not noted. The account of him was included in the teaching section of the long redaction of the Old Russian Prologue in the third quarter of the twelfth century, perhaps not directly from the "Ladder" but from the "Pandects" of Nikon of the Black Mountain. Later the account came to be received as the life of a saint, and the commemoration of Blessed Hesychius was entered in Russian calendars.