Hierax of Egypt

Holy Venerable Hierax of Egypt († after 408) is little known. It is known that he lived in Egypt and was one of the group of Nitrian monks headed by the so-⁠called Tall Brothers (Ammonius, Dioscorus, Eusebius and Euthymius). When Bishop Theophilus of Alexandria drove them out of Egypt, they came to Constantinople to ask the protection of Saint John Chrysostom (the story is told by several church writers, without mentioning Hierax's name). Some information about Venerable Hierax is given by Bishop Palladius of Helenopolis in the Dialogue on the Life of Blessed John Chrysostom. According to him, Venerable Hierax was the first of the hermits of Egypt and the Thebaid to withdraw to Mount Porphyrites (a peak in the mountain range between the Nile and the Red Sea), where he lived alone for four years, and then for forty-⁠five years struggled in the desert of Nitria. Driven out of Egypt with the other Nitrian monks, Venerable Hierax stayed with them for a time in Constantinople, and after the death of Ammonius, about 403, shortly before the beginning of the Synod of the Oak, he returned to the desert. Venerable Hierax must be distinguished from another Hierax, a disciple of Saint Anthony the Great, the oldest of the Nitrian monks (in Palladius's time he was about ninety), who is mentioned in the same chapter of the Dialogue.

Two sayings of Venerable Hierax are found in the Apophthegmata Patrum. When a monk asked him how he might be saved, he answered: Sit in your cell. If you are hungry, eat. If you are thirsty, drink. But speak ill of no one and you will be saved. In another saying, Hierax warned against worldly talk. In some Russian menologia of the seventeenth century his commemoration is on 5 and 8 May.

He is commemorated on 13 March (new style, a movable day), in the Synaxis of All the Venerable Fathers Who Shone in Ascetic Labour.