Isaiah of Sinai

Holy Venerable Martyr Isaiah of Sinai is one of the fathers of Sinai and Raithu, killed in the monasteries and caves of Mount Sinai and of the desert of Raithu. They are commemorated on 27 January and on 5 May (a movable day), in the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of Sinai, in new style.

Those fathers struggled on the mountain where the ten commandments were given by God to Moses and in the desert of Raithu, on the shore of the Red Sea, and suffered at the hands of the Saracens and the Blemmyes, nomadic Arab tribes. The first slaughter took place around the year 312 and was described by the Egyptian monk Ammonius, who witnessed the death of forty fathers of Sinai; then the Arabs also killed thirty-⁠nine fathers at Raithu. The second occurred more than a hundred years later, and was likewise described by a witness who escaped by a miracle, Venerable Nilus the Faster.

The ascetics of Sinai and Raithu led an especially strict life: all week they remained in their cells in silence, on Saturday they gathered for the vigil, and on Sunday they received the Holy Mysteries. They ate only dates and drank water. Many were known for the gift of working miracles, among them the elders Moses and Joseph. The service names Isaiah, Sabbas, Moses, the disciple of Moses, Jeremiah, Paul, Adam, Sergius, Domnus, Proclus, Hypatius, Isaac, Macarius, Mark, Benjamin, Eusebius and Elias.