Mark the Simple

Mark the Simple was a disciple of St Gregory of Sinai on the Holy Mountain in the fourteenth century. We know him from the Life of Gregory, in which his disciple and friend Callistus speaks of him with great warmth. He is venerated by the faithful, without a synodal canonization.

Mark came from Clazomenae. He received the monastic habit in a monastery at Thessaloniki, then came to Athos and submitted himself to Gregory. He acquired noetic prayer and sobriety and was, in Callistus's words, a treasury of all the virtues, above all of humility and obedience, which he showed not only to the abbot but to the whole brotherhood, serving even strangers like a slave. Even in deep old age he fulfilled every obedience with joy; serving as cook, he never showed weariness or negligence. Those who saw him felt, says Callistus, a spiritual fragrance and a longing for humility.

For twenty-⁠eight years he lived in the same skete, called Magoula, together with Callistus, with whom he was of one soul in two bodies. Before his death, ill, he moved from the skete to the Lavra and remained there to the end. Callistus called him the brightest instrument of the Holy Spirit, and wrote of him despite Mark's own command not to mention his virtues.