Jeremiah of Sinai

Holy Venerable Martyr Jeremiah of Sinai is numbered among the venerable martyrs killed in Sinai and Raithu: Isaiah, Sabbas, Moses, another Moses, Jeremiah, Paul, Adam, Sergius, Domnus, Proclus, Hypatius, Isaac, Macarius, Mark, Benjamin, Eusebius, Elias and others.

The venerable fathers killed in Sinai and Raithu struggled in the monasteries and caves of Mount Sinai, where God gave the ten commandments through Moses, and in the nearby desert of Raithu (on the shore of the Red Sea), and suffered from the Saracens and the Blemmyes, nomadic Arab tribes. The first killing took place about the year 312 and was described by Ammonius, an Egyptian monk, a witness of the death of forty holy fathers of Sinai. At the same time the Arabs killed thirty-⁠nine fathers at Raithu. The second killing took place over a hundred years later and was described likewise by a witness who escaped by a miracle, Venerable Nilus the Faster (commemorated on 12 November).

The ascetics of Sinai and Raithu led an especially strict life: all week they stayed in their cells in silence, on Saturday they gathered for the all-⁠night vigil, and on Sunday they partook of the Holy Mysteries. They ate only dates and water. Many of the hermits became known by the gift of working miracles, like the elders Moses, Joseph and others. By name, in the service of the venerable fathers Isaiah, Sabbas, Moses, his disciple Moses, Jeremiah, Paul, Adam, Sergius, Domnus, Proclus, Hypatius, Isaac, Macarius, Mark, Benjamin, Eusebius and Elias are mentioned.

They are commemorated on 27 January (14 January on the old style) and on 5 May (new style, a movable day), in the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of Sinai.