Euthymius

Euthymius the Great, the principal Palestinian monastic founder of that name, was born in 377 at Melitene in Lesser Armenia. The sixth-century Life by Cyril of Scythopolis, the chief narrative source, presents him as the son of Paul, described as a senator, and of Dionysia, and states that the child was named Euthymius (good cheer) after a vision granted to his previously childless parents. After his father’s death his mother placed him under Bishop Otreius of Melitene, who baptized him, educated him in Scripture, and advanced him through the minor orders. Ordained priest, he was given supervision of monasteries in the Melitene district. Seeking a stricter ascetic life, he left Armenia in early adulthood, traditionally about 406, and went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

In the Judaean desert he first lived at the lavra of Pharan. He then withdrew with his companion Theoctistus to a cave in a wadi east of Jerusalem (associated with Wadi Mukellik). Their settlement grew into a coenobium of which Theoctistus became abbot, while Euthymius himself preferred the eremitical pattern and continued to gather disciples. In the 420s he established his own lavra at the site later known as Khan al-Ahmar, between Jerusalem and Jericho. He was accustomed to withdraw further into the desert of Rouba, near the Dead Sea, during Lent. The lavra combined cells for solitaries with a common church and became one of the organizing centres of Palestinian monasticism in the fifth century.

Euthymius was widely credited with the conversion of Arab tribal groups encamped on the desert fringe. The phylarch Aspebetos, baptized Peter after the reported healing of his son Terebon, was later consecrated bishop of the camps (Paremboles). Euthymius opposed Nestorianism in the years around the Council of Ephesus (431) and, after 451, upheld the Definition of Chalcedon against the strong anti-Chalcedonian current among Palestinian monks. He was among those who influenced the empress Eudocia, then living in Palestine and at first aligned with the opponents of Chalcedon, to accept the council. He declined episcopal office. His circle included men who later held high posts; the monk Anastasius became patriarch of Jerusalem (458–478).

Euthymius died at his lavra on 20 January 473, at an advanced age given in the Life as ninety-seven years, and was buried there. Patriarch Anastasius of Jerusalem conducted the funeral. A church was later built over the tomb and consecrated in 482 under Patriarch Martyrius. The lavra remained a pilgrimage site in late antiquity; its ruins lie at Khan al-Ahmar. Among those formed in his tradition was Sabbas the Sanctified, whose Great Lavra carried forward Euthymius’s combination of lavriote and coenobitic practice. Veneration of Euthymius is ancient in both Eastern and Western calendars, with feast on 20 January. The portrait in Cyril of Scythopolis, written in the mid-sixth century from monastic archives and oral tradition, is the basis for virtually all later accounts; independent documentary detail beyond that Life and the archaeology of the monastery is limited.