John the Sabaite

Holy Venerable John the Sabaite is commemorated together with the venerable ones Sergius, Patricius and others, killed in the monastery of Saint Sabbas. In the eighth century the environs of Jerusalem were often attacked by Saracens. The monastery of Saint Chariton had been destroyed and laid waste. Twice the Saracens had tried to plunder the Lavra of Venerable Sabbas the Sanctified, but God's providence guarded it. The monks of the lavra could have taken shelter in Jerusalem, but they resolved not to leave the place where they had been saved for many years.

At the end of the Great Fast, in the week before Palm Sunday, on 13 March, the Saracens burst into the monastery and demanded all the treasures. Learning from the monks that there was nothing in the monastery but a little food and old clothes, they began to shoot at the inhabitants with bows. Thirteen people were killed, many wounded, and the cells were burning. The Saracens meant to set the church on fire too, but, seeing a multitude of people in the distance, thought they were troops sent from Jerusalem and hurried to leave, taking the little they had plundered. After the enemy's flight, Father Thomas, a skilled physician, began to give help to those left alive.

On Great Thursday, 20 March, the Saracens attacked the Lavra again, in greater numbers, and began to destroy the monks. Those left alive were driven into the church, to learn by torments where the treasures were hidden. The monastery was surrounded so that no one could escape. The barbarians seized Saint John, a monk still very young, who took care of travellers. They tortured him cruelly, cut the sinews of his feet and hands and dragged him by the feet over the stones down the mountain, skinning his back. The keeper of the church vessels, Venerable Sergius, hid the holy treasures and tried to flee, but was caught and beheaded. Some monks managed to hide in a cave outside the monastery, but a guard on the mountain saw them and ordered them all to come out. In the cave Venerable Patricius said in a whisper to the brethren: "Do not fear, I shall go out alone for you and die, and you sit and keep silent." The Saracen asked whether there was anyone else in the cave, and he answered that he had been alone. They led him to the church of the Lavra, where those left alive awaited their fate. The Saracens demanded of them a ransom of four thousand gold coins and the holy vessels. The monks could not give so much. Then they were moved to the cave of Saint Sabbas, in the monastery enclosure, and before the entrance a fire was lit, into which they threw dung, so that those shut in should suffocate from the poisonous smoke. In the cave eighteen people perished, among them the venerable ones John and Patricius. The survivors the Saracens tortured further, but, achieving nothing, left the monastery.

Late in the night of Great Friday, the monks hidden in the mountains returned to the Lavra, carried the bodies of the venerable fathers who had been killed into the church and buried them there in sorrow. The barbarians who had plundered the Lavra were punished by God: they were struck by a sudden sickness and all perished, and their bodies became the prey of wild beasts. The Church commemorates him on 2 April, in the new style.