Venerable Macedonius, Syrian Hermit (+c. 420)

The Venerable Macedonius, a Syrian hermit (IV–V), at first lived the life of a wanderer. For twenty-five years he travelled in the mountains of Phoenicia, Cilicia and Syria. Then the saint chose as his dwelling a deep ditch in the deserts of Syria, and here he spent his days under the open sky, withdrawn from worldly glory and honour. Many people came to the Venerable Macedonius to hear spiritual instruction. In his old age the hermit heeded their pleas and moved into a narrow cell. All his life the holy father fed on ground barley soaked in water (and so he was called “Critophagus”, the barley-eater); only in the evening of his life, weakened in body by his strict labours, did he begin to take a little bread.

The Lord granted His chosen one the gifts of casting out demons and healing the sick. The Venerable Macedonius died at about seventy-six (+420).