Hyperichius

Holy Venerable Hyperichius was a monk of the fourth and fifth centuries, known by his writing, the "Exhortation to Ascetics". No news of his life has been preserved.

Under the name of Hyperichius there survives a book of 160 chapters, in whose title the author is called "blessed". It is also found in the Greek collection of the writings of Saint Ephrem the Syrian (Word 50, Counsels to Ascetics). There is also an Armenian translation, under the name of Nilus of Ancyra. Scholars have tried to identify him with other fourth-⁠century men named Hyperechius: a bishop mentioned in a letter of Pope Liberius to the Macedonian bishops (366), a grammarian of Alexandria who lived in the time of Emperor Marcian (450-457), a recipient of letters of Saint Basil the Great and of Saint Gregory the Theologian, or a pupil of the rhetor Libanius (about 355). None of these, however, seems to have been a hermit.

The Bollandists identified him with a venerable Hyperichius commemorated on 7 August in the Greek verse synaxaria, where it is said that he reposed in peace and a couplet about him is given: even hidden in the tomb, Hyperichius became equal to the ranks of angels. His name is included in the sixth ode of the canon of Cheesefare Saturday. In the Hermeneia of the painter Dionysius of Fourna (about 1730-1733) he is described as a "bald elder with a forked beard".

He is commemorated on 20 August, according to the Greek calendar. He is not included in the present calendar of the Russian Orthodox Church.