Venerable Isaac, Dalmatus and Faustus (IV–V)

The Venerable Fathers Isaac, Dalmatus and Faustus were abbots of the monastery of Dalmatus. In the world the Venerable Dalmatus served in the army of the holy and pious King Theodosius the Great (379–395). Around 381–383 the blessed father withdrew from the world and went with his son Faustus to the monastery near Constantinople of the Venerable Isaac (commemorated 22 March and 30 May), a wonderworking father and a faithful defender of Orthodoxy. The Venerable Isaac tonsured father and son as monks, after which both took up a strict ascetic life. Once during Great Lent the Venerable Dalmatus spent forty days without food. Before his death, in 383, Saint Isaac appointed the Venerable Dalmatus abbot, and from his name the monastery was called that of Dalmatus.

The Venerable Dalmatus firmly defended the Orthodox faith at the Third Ecumenical Council of Ephesus, held in 431, which condemned the heretical teaching of Nestorius. After the council the holy father was made archimandrite of the monastery of Dalmatus, and in this rank he died in 446, having reached the age of ninety.

Of Saint Faustus it is known that, like his father, he too was a great ascetic. After his father’s death he took over the care of the monastery.