Isaac of Dalmatia

The Venerable Isaac the Confessor, also called Isaac of Dalmatia, was a monk of Constantinople, the founder of the Dalmatian monastery in the imperial capital. He fell asleep on 30 May 383 (in other sources, around 396). He was not from Dalmatia; his name comes from the monastery he founded. His feast is on 30 May, and with other saints of the monastery on 3 August.

The hermit and the emperor

Some sources say he was Syrian, but this is doubtful; details of his early life are not known. History shows that he was a hermit living in a small hut in the wilderness near Constantinople. In the year 378, according to Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Sozomen, hearing that the emperor Valens had fallen into the Arian heresy and was persecuting the Nicene Christians, removing bishops from their sees, closing churches and giving others to the Arians, Isaac came to the imperial city to confront the emperor. Valens was then preparing for war with the Goths, who had crossed the Danube and were settling in Thrace. According to the Serbian Synaxarion he went out in the emperor's path three days running: he said: Emperor, open the churches to the right-⁠believers and God will bless your road; on the third day he seized the emperor's horse by the bridle and asked that freedom be given to the Church, threatening God's punishment. The emperor, angered, ordered him thrown into a pit, from which, according to tradition, three angels drew him. On the fourth day Isaac prophesied his dreadful death: You will lead the army against the barbarians, but you will not defeat them, you will flee before them, but you will be seized and burned alive. Valens ordered him thrown into prison and swore he would punish him on returning from the battle. On 9 August 378 Valens was defeated at Adrianople and died in flames, after taking refuge in a barn.

The Dalmatian monastery

Valens's successor, Theodosius I, freed Isaac, banned Arianism and reopened the closed churches. Isaac wished to return to the hermit life, but was asked to stay in Constantinople, where a wealthy aristocrat, Saturninus, built a monastery for him, of which he became the first abbot. He zealously defended the right faith at the Second Ecumenical Council at Constantinople (381). Tradition says he worked many miracles. At the end of his life he entrusted the leadership of the monastery to his closest disciple, Dalmatus, who was himself enrolled among the saints and from whom the monastery was named Dalmatian.

Relics and veneration

His relics were at first in the church of Saint Stephen, neighbouring the monastery, then moved to the church of All Saints. The life of John Chrysostom mentions that he lived into the fifth century. Tsar Peter the Great, born on 30 May, the saint's day, took him as patron of the Romanov dynasty, and at Saint Petersburg Saint Isaac's Cathedral was raised to him, one of the largest churches of Russia.