Theoctistus of Palestine

Venerable Theoctistus of Palestine was a companion and disciple of Saint Euthymius the Great, an ascetic at the Pharan lavra and then abbot of a monastery in the Judaean Desert, which took his name. He died at an advanced age, according to one source in the year 451, according to others in 446. The Church remembers him on 3 September (16 September on the new calendar).

Beginnings

One source makes him a native of the Armenian city of Hierapolis. It is told that one day a solitary young man knocked at the gate of a monastery: it was Theoctistus, who, loving God with all his heart, had fled his parents' house in order to part once and for all from a world full of occasions to break the law of the Lord. The abbot understood the purpose of the young man and received him among the brethren, to give him the opportunity to give himself purely to the service of God. From Jerusalem, full of pious thoughts about the works of the Lord, Theoctistus went to the desert above the Dead Sea, where the Pharan lavra stood, with many cells of hermits scattered about and a single common church. He lived in an empty cave, near Saint Euthymius the Great. Coming to know the monk Euthymius, he became his disciple, received monastic tonsure from him and the two began to labour together.

The desert and the monastery

Each year, after the leave-⁠taking of Theophany, Euthymius and Theoctistus sought challenge and solitude in the desert and returned to their cells only on Palm Sunday. Five years after their association began, they went into the desert for Great Lent and found in a dry valley (Wadi Mukallik) a large cave, where they stayed in prayer for a time. At length shepherds from Bethany found them, and people of the neighbourhood began to come to them for spiritual counsel and to bring them food. The monks then built a church. When other monks also came to be taught, Euthymius and Theoctistus raised a lavra over the cave church, and Theoctistus became abbot of the monastery. Euthymius is credited with the founding of several monasteries, among them that of Theoctistus.

Repose

When Theoctistus was eighty-⁠four, God announced to Saint Euthymius that his first disciple would pass to eternal glory. Euthymius hurried to him and Theoctistus gave up his soul into the hands of his teacher, on 3 September. At his burial the patriarch of Jerusalem was also present.