Venerable Alexander, Abbot of the Monastery of the Unsleeping (+430)

The Venerable Alexander, founder of the monastery of “the Unsleeping”, was born in Asia and educated in Constantinople. In the world he served as a soldier, but his soul sought another field, and so he left the world, took the monastic habit in a monastery near Antioch, and began his labours under the guidance of Hegumen Elias. The saint gradually made his labours stricter, and at last received a blessing for the life of a hermit too. The only thing he took with him into the desert was the holy Gospel; after this the Lord called Alexander to preach among the pagans. The venerable father converted the head of a city, Rabbula, to Christianity, who afterwards received the rank of hierarch as well and governed the episcopal see of Edessa for thirty whole years.

At last the Venerable Alexander settled near the River Euphrates. Soon brothers gathered around him. A monastery was formed which numbered up to four hundred monks. Then the hegumen, burning with divine zeal, decided to establish in the monastery the unceasing glorification of the Lord, and for three years besought the Lord to reveal whether his intention was pleasing to Him. At last, with a blessing from on high, he divided the brothers into twenty-four groups, which relieved one another every hour of the day and night and offered unceasing psalmody to the King. The exception was the hours when divine services were celebrated in the churches. It is from this that the name of the monastery comes, “the Unsleeping”.

For twenty years the Venerable Alexander governed the monastery on the bank of the Euphrates. Then he handed over the office of superior to his disciple, the experienced monk Trophimus, and himself went round the cities bordering on Persia preaching the Gospel. So he reached the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, where he founded one more monastery with the typikon of “the Unsleeping” that he loved so much. The venerable father reposed in deep old age in 430.