Sisoes the Great

Venerable Sisoes the Great was one of the Desert Fathers of Egypt, a Coptic hermit who lived on the mountain where Saint Anthony the Great had struggled, in a cave that had been his. He fell asleep in the Lord in 429, in extreme old age, surrounded by his disciples. The Church commemorates him on 6 July as a wonderworker and a teacher of humility and of hope in God's mercy.

Life

Sisoes was a Copt by birth and, having withdrawn from the world in his youth, went to the desert of Scetis, where he lived for a time under the direction of his teacher, Abba Or. According to the Greek tradition, he was born into a poor family with many children, and an angel urged him to go to the desert, where he met Abba John the Short, who after a few months of living together advised him to struggle alone. Seeking an even more remote place, he crossed the Nile and hid on the mountain where Saint Anthony the Great had died. After Anthony's death he settled there, in his cave, and remained in the desert for many years; the sources speak of sixty or seventy-⁠two years of ascetic labor. Through hard labor and prayerful vigil he became gentle as a child, and monks and laypeople came from afar to seek his counsel.

Teaching

Sisoes taught monks to take every trial as coming by God's will and as a result of their own sins, and to credit any good to God's providence. To a brother who asked how he could please God, he answered that he should leave the world, separate himself from the earth and unite himself to God by prayer and tears. Of humility he said that it is gained by the one who trains himself to count every man better than himself. When a monk complained that he could not remember the wise words he read, so as to repeat them to others, Sisoes told him that this was not needed; what was needed was purity of mind and speaking from it, with hope set on God. Asked whether a year was enough for the repentance of a brother who had fallen into sin, he answered that he trusted in the mercy of God and that, if a man repented with all his soul, God would accept his repentance in three days.

Wonders and repose

His life records healings of the sick, the casting out of unclean spirits and even the raising of a dead man. A layman was bringing his son to Abba Sisoes on Anthony's mountain, and on the way the boy died. The father, unshaken, brought him in faith to the elder and fell at his feet, holding the child as though bowing, and then went out. The elder, thinking the boy was still bowing, said to him, "Rise and go out," and the dead boy rose and went out. When the elder learned what had happened he was grieved, since he had not wished it, and his disciple forbade the layman to tell anyone until the elder's death.

Before his death his face shone like the sun, and the monks standing around him marveled; when he gave up his soul, the cell filled with a sweet fragrance. He reposed in 429, in great old age, at ninety-⁠seven according to some sources.

Veneration

In iconography Sisoes often appears standing before an open tomb, pondering the vanity of life and the certainty of death; such images are found in the old painting of Meteora, Athos and Kastoria from the sixteenth century. The Church honors him on 6 July. In the Serbian tradition he is a protector of children, and part of his relics is at the monastery of Saint Basil of Ostrog. In Russia several ships of the imperial navy bore his name, in memory of the victory at Hogland won on his commemoration day.