John the Dwarf

The Venerable John Colobus (John the Dwarf) was a Father of the Egyptian desert in the fourth century. He was called in Greek Kolobos, short of stature. He is venerated in the Orthodox Church on 9 November (22 November in the new calendar), and the Coptic Church counts him among the great hermits. He was the guide of Saint Arsenius the Great.

He was born around 339 in the town of Thebes in Egypt, of poor Christian parents. At eighteen he went to the desert of Scetis, with his elder brother Daniel, and became a disciple of Saint Pambo and a friend of Pishoy. He led a life of severe austerity, eating only bread and vegetables, one meal a day, and taught other monks, among them Saint Arsenius the Great and the blessed Thaïs. After Pambo's departure he was ordained priest by Pope Theophilus and became abbot of the monastery he founded around the tree of obedience. He is known above all for his obedience. Once Pambo gave him a dry piece of wood, ordering him to plant and water it. John obeyed and watered it twice a day, although the water was about twelve miles away; after three years the wood sprouted and gave abundant fruit. Pambo took some of the fruit and went to all the elders, saying: Take, eat from the fruit of obedience. Postumian, who came to Egypt in 402, says that this tree was shown to him, in the monastery yard, covered with shoots and green leaves.

When the barbarian Mazices attacked Scetis in 395 (in other sources, later), John fled the Nitrian desert and settled on Mount Colzim, near present Suez, where he died, around 405 (in other accounts, between 422 and 430). He wrote the life of Saint Paesius the Great, in which he first told the story of the seven youths of Ephesus; another source attributes to him a life of Ababius. In 515 his relics were moved to the Nitrian desert; according to another source they are in the church of Saint Mina in Egypt. In the desert of Scetis stands the monastery of Saint John the Dwarf, regarded today as belonging to the Coptic Church. Coptic tradition counts him among the five great hermits, with Anthony the Great, Paul of Thebes and the two Macarii.