Venerable Christopher the Roman (VI) and Fantinus the Wonderworker (IX)
The Venerable Christopher the Roman lived in the sixth century. He became a monk in Palestine, in the monastery of the Venerable Theodosius (commemorated 11 January). Abba Theodulus’s accounts of the Venerable Christopher are included in the collection called the Spiritual Meadow.
Once the Venerable Christopher went to Jerusalem to venerate the holy tomb of the Lord and the Life-giving Cross. His attention was drawn to a monk standing still at the gates of the church, before whose face two crows were flying. Christopher understood that these were demons who would not let the brother into the church, and asked him: “Why art thou standing at the gates? Why dost thou not go in?” “Forgive me, father,” the monk answered, “two thoughts are fighting within me; one tells me: go and venerate the precious Cross; but the other says: do not go in, first do thy business, and thou canst venerate the Cross afterwards.” Then Christopher took the father by the hand and led him into the church. The crows vanished at that very moment, and the monk approached the holy things and venerated them. The Venerable Christopher used to tell this to instruct those who show no zeal in prayer and forget that one must first carry out one’s spiritual service, and only then the necessary tasks.
By day the Venerable Christopher carried out his obediences in the monastery, and in the evening he went to the cave where the Venerable Theodosius and other fathers had prayed before. On his way down to the cave he made a hundred prostrations on every eighteenth step, and he spent the greater part of the night in prayer. He spent eleven years in such labours. Once in the cave the saint saw a great many lamps, which two radiant youths were lighting. “Why have you set out lamps here so that I cannot go in to pray?” asked Christopher. “These are the lamps of the fathers who serve God,” the youths answered. “Tell me, is my lamp lit or not?” “We shall light it,” was the answer. Then the blessed father thought: “O Christopher, thou must take up an even greater labour so that thy lamp may be lit!” He set out for the monastery of Mount Sinai without taking anything with him, and there spent fifty years in heavy and tireless labour. At last the God-pleaser heard a voice: “Christopher! Go back to thy monastery, where thou didst labour before, that thou mayest rest there with thy fathers.”
The Venerable Fantinus the Wonderworker was born in Calabria. From the age of eight the saint was brought up in a monastery. In his youth he wandered in the deserts and, left without clothing, often took no food for twenty days. The venerable father spent sixty years in such labour. In the evening of his life the saint escaped the Saracens and went to the Peloponnese with his disciples Vitalis and Nicephorus. With the teaching of the Gospel he went through Corinth, Athens, Larissa and Thessalonica, where he venerated the relics of the holy Great Martyr Demetrius (commemorated 26 October). The God-pleasing father reposed in deep old age, at the end of the ninth or the beginning of the tenth century.
