Michael and Arsenius of Ulompo

Saints Michael and Arsenius of Ulompo were Georgian monks of Mount Olympus in Bithynia. Unfortunately their biographies have not been preserved. It is believed that at some point Arsenius moved from Khandzta Monastery to Palestine and labored there with a certain Macarius of Leteti. Afterward he founded a Georgian monastery on Mount Olympus in Asia Minor. Twenty years later the venerable Hilarion the Georgian arrived on Olympus and found three Georgian monks who were almost certainly disciples of Michael and Arsenius.

It is known that they were contemporaries of Patriarch Sergius of Jerusalem (843 to 859). The synodicon of the Holy Cross Monastery in Jerusalem records: "Our Holy Fathers Michael and Arsenius, founders of Olympus." This indicates that Arsenius and Michael established Georgian monasticism on Olympus. Mount Olympus in Bithynia, southeast of Prousa, was an important monastic center from the fifth to the fourteenth centuries, with some fifty monasteries, its apogee coming between the eighth and tenth centuries, when Olympus held first place in the list of holy mountains. Monasteries of the region included Atroa, Chenolakkos, Medikion and Pelekete. According to the scholar Paul Ingorokva, Arsenius was probably a disciple of Saint Grigol of Khandzta, "a handsome gentleman, a kind monk full of wisdom, the son of a great nobleman and a relative of Saint Ephraim, bishop of Atsquri." They are commemorated on 3 May (new style; 16 May on the old calendar).