John of Bithynia

Holy Venerable John of Bithynia (eighth and ninth centuries) was the son of Saint Anna, known as the monk Euthymian. After her husband died, Anna left the world, taking, according to the short account, the young John with her, and the two went to a monastery on Mount Olympus in Bithynia, in the north-⁠west of Asia Minor. There mother and son devoted themselves to ascetic labours.

The longer life of Anna tells that she was the daughter of a deacon of the church of Blachernae in Constantinople, that her grandmother gave her in marriage, though she did not wish it, and that after the death of her husband she was left with two children. An ascetic of Olympus, her uncle, had foretold her hardships and the death of her husband. The same life, however, says that her two children departed to the Lord, and Anna, after giving her goods to the poor, received monastic tonsure from the hand of an elder and came, in men's clothes, under the name Euthymian, to a monastery on Olympus. The fame of her miracles drew crowds, so that Patriarch Tarasius gave the monks a roomier place for a lavra. The page tells nothing further about John, and the two accounts do not agree with each other about the fate of the children.

Saint Anna fell asleep in 826, according to the notes of the page. The Church commemorates Venerable John on 26 June, in the new style.