John the Reaper

Holy Venerable John the Reaper (John Theristis) lived from 1049 to 1129 and was an ascetic of Calabria, born in Palermo. Although he lived in the time after the Schism of 1054, he is honoured as a saint by the Orthodox Church. His life has come down full of legends and popular beliefs.

His father was a Byzantine farmer from the coast of Calabria, killed in a Saracen raid; his mother, taken pregnant in the same raid, was sold as a slave in Palermo, where she bore John and raised him a Christian in the midst of a Muslim world. At fourteen, encouraged by his mother, he fled toward his father's country. He crossed the Strait of Messina in a boat without oars or sails, then walked as far as Monasterace. The inhabitants, seeing him dressed as an Arab, took him to the bishop, who questioned him; the boy answered that he wanted to be baptized, but the bishop subjected him to hard trials before allowing him to receive through baptism the Christian name John. After baptism he was tonsured a monk at the monastery of Stilo. The name Reaper was given to him by his abbot, who assigned him this work for his humbling.