Mark of Sinai

Holy Venerable Martyr Mark of Sinai is one of the venerable fathers slain at Sinai and Raithu, of whom are commemorated by name Isaiah, Sabbas, Moses, another Moses, Jeremiah, Paul, Adam, Sergius, Domnus, Proclus, Hypatius, Isaac, Macarius, Mark, Benjamin, Eusebius, Elijah and others. The Azbyka page says nothing particular about Mark.

These ascetics lived in the monasteries and caves of Mount Sinai and in the nearby desert of Raithu, on the shore of the Red Sea, and were killed by the Saracens and the Blemmyes, nomadic Arab tribes. The first killing was around the year 312 and was described by the Egyptian monk Ammonius, an eyewitness of the killing of forty fathers of Sinai; at the same time the Arabs killed thirty-⁠nine fathers at Raithu. The second killing, a hundred years later, was described by an eyewitness who escaped in a wonderful way, the Venerable Nilus the Faster (commemorated 12 November). The ascetics of Sinai and Raithu led an especially strict life: all week they stayed silent in their cells, on Saturday they gathered for the all-⁠night vigil, and on Sunday they received Communion; they fed only on dates and water. Many of them were famed for the gift of working miracles, among them the elders Moses and Joseph.

The memory of Mark is kept on 27 January, in the new style, which is 14 January in the old style, and in the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of Sinai, on the movable day around 5 May.