Venerable Thomas (X)

The Venerable Thomas was born in Bithynia. From childhood he loved the monastic life, and when he came of age he became a monk in a nearby monastery. The blessed one laboured under the guidance of a God-inspired elder, tried to cut off his own will completely, and advanced rapidly in the virtues. Besides this, he was distinguished by his learning and his deep knowledge of Holy Scripture. When a pious Byzantine nobleman founded a monastery on the bank of the River Sangarius, the brotherhood chose Thomas, by then an experienced monk, as superior of the new monastery.

Through the devil’s machinations unrest broke out in the brotherhood for no clear reason. The humble Thomas, who blamed himself for everything, left the monastery and settled in the desert. Little by little laymen came to the holy ascetic who wished to take up the monastic life under his guidance, and so a monastery came into being, of which the Venerable Thomas became superior.

The evil one brought a new trial upon the saint: a swarm of mosquitoes, which constantly surrounded the saint, gave him no chance to rest or pray. This misfortune went on for three years, but Thomas unceasingly thanked the Lord and besought Him for forgiveness of sins. Then the mosquitoes disappeared, but large flies appeared, which constantly bit the venerable father. After another three years the flies were replaced by a multitude of snakes.

Once, during the Divine Liturgy, when the service was drawing to its close, a huge snake crawled out from somewhere and coiled itself up at the doors of the church. When the service was over, Thomas, in full priestly vestments, went up to the threshold where the reptile lay and said to it: “Serpent, if thy appearing, by the help of my Lord, betokens thine end, follow me.” At these words the snake took hold of the hem of the saint’s vestment with its teeth and followed the saint to a deep pit some distance from the church. Through the blessed one’s prayer the reptile fell into the pit and vanished. Then the other snakes too, which for so many years had given God’s chosen one no rest, perished.

From that time on the blessed Thomas was freed from temptations and was granted by the Lord the gifts of healing and prophecy. People in distress came to him from distant places to ask for help. Once the Emperor Leo VI the Wise (886–912) came to Thomas’s monastery to hear his counsel. Not finding the holy father in the monastery, the autocrat sent an envoy to him with a letter. The envoy had only just drawn near the father’s cell when the latter came out to meet him with a letter already written in reply.

Saint Thomas lived to a deep old age and, after a short illness, committed his soul to the Lord.