Venerable Gerasimus (+475)

The Venerable Gerasimus of the Jordan (+475) came from Lycia (Asia Minor). After being tonsured a monk he withdrew into the desert of the Thebaid (Egypt), and around 450 he came to Palestine and founded a monastery on the bank of the Jordan.

At one time the Venerable Gerasimus was led astray by the heresy of Eutyches and Dioscorus and confessed only the divine nature in Jesus Christ, but with the support of the Venerable Euthymius the Great (commemorated 20 January) he returned to the true faith.

The holy monk laid down a strict rule for the monastery: five days a week the desert-dwellers lived in solitude, took no food cooked on a fire, and ate only dry bread, herbs and water; on Saturday and Sunday they gathered for the Divine Liturgy and received Communion.

Each monk owned only an old garment and a mat to sleep on. When they went out of their cells, the fathers did not lock the door, so that a passer-by could come in, rest, and take whatever he needed.

The Venerable Gerasimus himself was an example in his labours. During Great Lent he ate nothing until radiant Pascha, and spent the whole fast in the desert with his beloved disciple, the blessed Cyriacus (commemorated 29 September), whom Euthymius the Great had sent to him.

When Euthymius the Great died, the Venerable Gerasimus saw how angels carried the saint’s soul up to heaven; with the blessed Cyriacus accompanying him, he went to Saint Euthymius’s monastery and committed his body to the earth.