Orion of Sinai

Holy Venerable Orion of Sinai is commemorated in the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers slain at Sinai and Raithu, in the wilderness, by Saracens.

The Azbyka page says nothing specific about him, but holds the common life of the fathers of Sinai and Raithu. They struggled in the monasteries and caves of Mount Sinai, where God gave through Moses the ten commandments, and in the nearby wilderness of Raithu, on the shore of the Red Sea, and suffered at the hands of Saracens and Blemmyes, nomadic Arab tribes. The first slaughter took place around the year 312 and was described by Ammonius, an Egyptian monk, an eyewitness of the death of forty fathers of Sinai; at the same time the Arabs slew thirty-⁠nine fathers at Raithu. The second slaughter occurred over a hundred years later and was described by a witness who escaped by miracle, Venerable Nilus the Faster (commemorated on 12 November).

The ascetics of Sinai and Raithu led a particularly strict life: all week they stayed in their cells in silence, on Saturday they gathered for the all-⁠night vigil, and on Sunday they received Communion of the Holy Mysteries. They fed only on dates and water. Many of the hermits became famous for the gift of working miracles, such as the elders Moses, Joseph and others. In the service of the venerable fathers are named Isaiah, Sabbas, Moses, his disciple Moses, Jeremiah, Paul, Adam, Sergius, Domnus, Proclus, Hypatius, Isaac, Macarius, Mark, Benjamin, Eusebius and Elias. Their memory is kept on 5 May (a movable day), in the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of Sinai, and the double slaughter is recalled on 14 January, in the new style.