Venerable Peter the Athonite (+734)
The Venerable Peter the Athonite (+734) served as a commander in the army of the Byzantine emperor. In 667, during a war with the Syrians, he was taken captive and shut up in the fortress of Samarra. His imprisonment lasted a good while. The God-fearing soldier searched his conscience diligently and tried to understand for what sin this terrible punishment had befallen him. At last divine grace enlightened his mind, and he remembered that he had once promised the Lord to become a monk, and then had forgotten this vow. After this the prisoner began to fast strictly and at the same time fervently besought the intercession of Nicholas the Wonderworker. Once, in his sleep, Saint Nicholas appeared to him and advised him to ask help of Symeon the God-receiver. In a second appearance the hierarch encouraged and strengthened him, and the third time he came before him together with Symeon the God-receiver himself. The righteous Symeon, by the touch of his hand, melted Peter’s fetters like wax; then the prison doors opened and the prisoner was set free. Symeon vanished at once, while Saint Nicholas accompanied him to the border of Greece, reminded him of the vow he had given the Lord, and disappeared.
Saint Peter made for Rome: with all his heart he wished to put on the monastic schema at the shrine of Peter, the chief of the apostles. Nicholas the Wonderworker did not leave him without help: he appeared to the Pope of Rome in his sleep and charged him to tonsure Peter a monk.
The next day there was no room in the cathedral church of Rome at the service. Among the faithful stood Peter the Athonite humbly, praying with his usual hope. Suddenly the pope’s voice rang out from the ambo: “Let Peter who has come from Greece, whom Saint Nicholas set free from prison, come to me!” At the shrine of his great namesake the pope tonsured the saint a monk, kept him with him, taught him the rule of monastic life, and then entrusted him to the will of the Lord. Peter boarded a ship bound for the East. On the way the Mother of God appeared to him and told him that he was to settle on the holy mountain of Athos and stay there until his end. When the ship came level with the Holy Mountain, it stopped of itself. Peter understood that he was to go ashore here. This happened in 681. The saint spent fifty-three years in the wild places of the Athonite peninsula; his clothes fell to pieces, but his long hair and beard covered his body.
The venerable father endured many trials: at first demons appeared to him in the form of armed soldiers and terrible beasts, and threatened to strangle him and tear him to pieces. Peter repelled their attacks by fervent prayers to the Lord and the Mother of God. Then the evil one resorted to cunning: he appeared to the saint in the form of a boy sent from his family home, and begged him to leave the desert and return home. The hermit burst into tears, but only answered: “I came here by the will of the Lord and the Mother of God, and without their blessing I will go nowhere.”
Seven years later the devil stood before the desert-dweller in the form of a radiant angel and said to him: “By the Lord’s command thou must go out into the world to enlighten and instruct the people whose minds are darkened!” The experienced monk repeated once more: “Without the command of the Mother of God I will go nowhere.” The evil one vanished, and after this no longer dared come near him. And then the Mother of God appeared to the valiant ascetic together with Saint Nicholas and told him: “Every fortieth day an angel will bring thee food.” And indeed, to the monk worn out by a strict fast of forty days an angel of the Lord brought heavenly manna and strengthened him for the next labour.
Once a hunter pursuing a deer came upon, in these uninhabited places, a naked man whose body was covered with hair and who had leaves girded round his waist. He took fright and was about to flee, but Saint Peter stopped him and told him about his life. The astonished layman asked the monk, “Let me stay with thee too,” but the saint advised him to return home, gave him a year to test himself, and forbade him to tell what he had seen.
At the end of the year the hunter returned to the desert with his possessed brother and other companions. When they went into the desert-dweller’s cave, they saw that he had already died. The hunter wept bitter tears and told those present of the venerable father’s life. When his brother touched the saint’s body, he was healed at once. Peter the Athonite died in 734. His incorrupt relics rested on Athos, in the monastery of Saint Cyril, but during the iconoclast period they were hidden away. In 969 the remains were translated with honour to the Thracian village of Fotokomos.
