Venerable Or the Monk (+c. 390)

The Venerable Or the monk withdrew from the world while still a youth, went to the desert of the Thebaid, and for many years lived there the strict life of a hermit. When the ascetic was already aged, an angel appeared to him and told him that the Lord was entrusting him with the care of the souls of those who would wish to live under his guidance. The Lord granted him the gift of reading Holy Scripture, although he had been unlettered from childhood. Gradually a large brotherhood gathered around the Venerable Or, a monastery was founded, and the blessed one became its spiritual head. He often told his disciples of the temptations that assail monks labouring in solitude, but he recounted everything as if he knew of it only from the lives of desert-dwellers he was acquainted with. The venerable father concealed his own labours; he saw every thought and action of his disciples, and no one dared to deceive him. Having reached deep old age, the saint founded several monasteries in which more than a thousand monks laboured. The blessed Or reposed around 390, at the age of ninety.