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| St. Hypatios of Rufianes (Feast Day - June 17) |
Verses
Hypatios was laid next to the sea,
And is obedient with the friends of God above.
And is obedient with the friends of God above.
This Saint lived during the reign of Honorius (395-423) and Arcadius (395-408), was born in Phrygia, and having been educated by his father he was also beaten by him. When he was eighteen years old, he left his parents and went to Thrace. There he went to a cenobium and became a monk, and his virtues rendered him venerable and revered by all, for he never drank wine.
And at one time he battled against the demon of fornication, for which he went eight days without eating or drinking at all. When the superior of the monastery learned of this, he gave him with his own hands a cup of wine and a bread, to eat and drink after compline, before all the brothers. Having eaten and drank, he was freed of the battle, for which he thanked God, as well as his teacher and abbot.
When many years had passed, he went to a city with the permission and counsel of the abbot, to help a brother who had fallen into temptation. Finding him, he helped also his father according to the flesh, and sent him home.
Having united himself with two brothers, he came to Chalcedon, and went to Rufinianes Monastery, which at that time was uninhabited and unadorned, or rather we should saw it was wild and fearsome. Rufinus had come from Rome to Chalcedon, built a glorious monastery, populated it with monks from a monastery in Egypt, and served God. When Rufinus died and was buried at the monastery, the monks departed, and each went to their own homeland. This left the monastery abandoned to such an extent, that it was full of thorns and weeds, leaving the monastery to be wild and without beauty. Moreover evil spirits entered it and took their dwelling therein, making it fearsome and uninhabitable.
Saint Hypatios therefore found this monastery deserted, and the demons that dwelled there he banished by his prayers, while the lack of beauty and habitation of the monastery he cleaned up with his fellow brothers, restoring its ancient beauty and splendor. Hence he stayed there with his brotherhood. Some worked at making cloth out of goat's hair, others wove baskets, and yet others worked in the garden.
When some time had passed, the Saint went to Thrace, to his old monastery. The monks of Rufinianes Monastery went there, and asked for Hypatios to be their abbot, so they took him back. From then on, because the Saint endured many struggles and ascetic feats, many sought to imitate him, so they went there and became monks. In a short time they became thirty monks in number, and they progressed in virtue.
The divine Hypatios also received from God the gift of healing. By this he cured the blind, lame, withered, those with dropsy, and he healed many women with a flow of blood, as well as the childless and barren he made parents of children, while those without milk he made into milk-feeders, and many of the demon possessed he liberated from demons. Often by his prayers the Saint multiplied water, wheat and legumes in times of want and need, and he banished every other form of illness, not only from people but also from unreasonable animals.
The food of this Saint was legumes and vegetables and a little bread, which he ate around the ninth hour. In his old age he also drank a little wine.
When he was eighty years old the hairs of his head and beard became white as snow. The blessed one was venerable and revered, both in praxis (action) and in theoria (vision). Having shepherded the flock of Christ for forty years, and keeping the honor of the priesthood, as well as sending beforehand to the Lord eighty monks that had died, afterwards he also departed to Him, in order to receive the wages for his labors.
