The small village of Mutalask in the Cappadocia region became famous for this great light of the Orthodox Church. Sava was born there to father John and mother Sofia. At the age of eight, he left his parents’ home and became a monk in a nearby family called Flavian. After 10 years, he moved to the Palestinian monasteries, where he stayed for the longest time in the family of St. Euthymius the Great (see January 20) and Theoctist.
The clairvoyant Euthymius prophesied for him that he would be a famous monk and teacher to monks, and that he would establish a laurel greater than all the laurels of that time. After the death of Saint Euthymius, Sava went away to the desert, where he spent five years as a hermit in a cave, which the angel of God showed him.
After that, when he became a perfect monk, according to God’s Providence, many seekers of spiritual life began to gather around him. Soon such a large number of them gathered that Sava had to build a church and many cells. Some Armenians also came to him, to whom he assigned a cave, where he would serve in the Armenian language.
When his father died, his elderly mother Sofia came to him, whom he consecrated, and gave her a cell away from his monastery, where she lived for the rest of her life. This holy father suffered many temptations from close people, heretics and demons. But he overcame everything, including: people close to him with gentleness and indulgence, heretics with his unwavering Orthodox faith, and demons with the sign of the cross and calling on God for help.
He had a particularly great struggle with the demons on Mount Castello, where he established his second monastery. He established in total seven monasteries. He and Theodosius the Great, his neighbor, were considered the greatest lights and pillars of Orthodoxy in the East. They corrected kings and patriarchs in the faith, and served everyone as an example of the humility of the saintly and miraculous power of God. After a difficult and very fruitful life, Saint Sava died in 532 at the age of ninety-four. Among many other miraculous and good deeds, let it be mentioned only that he was the first to arrange the act of worship in monasteries, known as the act of the Jerusalem Church.
Life and Feats of out Venerable Saint Sava the Sanctified
Venerable Sava was born in the thirty-first year of the reign of the Greek emperor Theodosius the Younger, in the area of Cappadocia, in a village called Mutalaska, near Caesarea. That village was insignificant, but with the birth of Sava in it, it became more famous than Armatem, where the divine prophet Samuel grew up. The parents of Blessed Sava were John and Sophia, people of high origin and pious. When the child was five years old, they traveled to Alexandria, because John was in the royal service and had a high military rank. But according to God’s plan, Sava would be left at his parents’ property with his mother’s brother.
But since Hermione’s wife was evil and quarrelsome, the child suffered a lot from her, and finally went to his father’s brother Gregory, who lived in another village called Skanda. As a result, enmity arose between Sava’s uncles. Sava’s parents stayed in Alexandria for a long time, and Hermione and Gregory quarreled among themselves, and each of them wanted not so much to keep the child with him as to use his father’s property. Blessed little boy Sava, still very smart from an early age, seeing the rift and quarrel between his uncles, gave up all his property and went to the Flavian monastery, four kilometers away from Mulalaska, and received a monastic figure in his eighth year.
While living in the monastery, Sava quickly learned the psalter and other books of the Holy Scriptures, and progressed in virtues, diligently adhering to the monastic constitution. But after not much time, uncles of Blessed Sava reconciled among themselves, came to him in the monastery and began to dissuade him, advising him to leave the monastery, so that he could marry and live on his father’s property.
But he, loving to be on the threshold of the house of God rather than living in the tents of sinners, and loving the monastic life more than the world, disobeyed them, and rejected their insulting suggestion, saying: As from a serpent, I flee from those who advise me to depart from the way of God, because evil talk corrupts good customs, and I am afraid that I will bring upon myself a curse by which the prophet curses those who stray to corruption: “Cursed are those who stray from your commandments” (Ps. 118, 21). – With such words, he sent his empty relatives away from him, and he began to struggle with even greater zeal, killing his body with hard work and restraint and subjugating it to the spirit.
When this snake was defeated, which wanted to take the monk Sava out of the family by property and marriage, as from a paradise settlement, another taster began to tast the saint – the demon of indulgence. Once, working in the monastery garden, Blessed Sava saw a beautiful apple hanging on a tree; and defeated by thought, he plucked the apple with the desire to eat it before a certain time and the prescribed blessing. But remembering that such a kind of snake in paradise led the first man to sin, Sava refrained, did not taste the apple, saying: It was wonderful to see and pleasant to eat, and the kind that killed Adam. – And throwing the apple on the ground, he trampled it with his feet, trampling his thought with it at the same time, and more than that: satirizing the head of the demon of indulgence. And he made a decision: not to eat apples until death.
Since then, he overcame every bodily desire with restraint: he ate little, slept little, and was always in labor, for his hands were outstretched either to prayer or to work. And soon he, although young, equated himself with virtue with all the old men who were in that monastery.
It happened once to one of the brothers there, when he was in obedience in the bakery, that they all got wet from the rain. And it was winter time, and a day without sun, and the brother, having nowhere to dry his clothes, put them in the oven over the wood, and forgot about it. After a short time, the brothers came to bake bread, and set fire to the wood, not knowing that the brother had put his clothes in the oven to dry. When the wood was already on fire, the brother remembered his clothes and began to lament about it. And Blessed Sava was also there, so seeing his brother’s great sorrow, he did not even think of himself, but crossed himself and entered the flames of the furnace. And, oh wonders! just as the young men in the furnace of Babylon did not burn because of their faith, so the boy Sava came out of the furnace unharmed because of his love for his brother, carrying his brother’s clothes in his hands, and his clothes on him were not touched by fire at all. – Seeing this miracle, the brothers were astonished, and said among themselves: What will this boy be like in later years, when in his childhood he is honored with such grace from God?
Blessed Sava spent ten years in that monastery, going from strength to strength and from glory to glory. Then a desire arose in him to go to Jerusalem to venerate the holy places, and to visit fathers in the nearby desert for the spiritual benefit of himself from talking to them, and to find himself a abode in the desert. That is why he addressed the archimandrite with a request to release him to the Holy City with prayer and blessing. But the archimandrite did not want to let him go, saying: It is not good to go abroad so young; you better stay in one place.
However, God, who arranges everything for the benefit, ordered the archimandrite in a vision not to let Sava, telling him: “Let Sava go to serve me in the desert.” – Then the archimandrite called the blessed Sava, gave him a blessing, and released him with a prayer on the way. And he, led by the right hand of the Most High, arrived in Jerusalem in his eighteenth year, at the end of the reign of Marcian, and for the patriarchate in the Holy City of Juvenal. He arrived at the monastery of St. Pasarion in the winter, and would be received by Archimandrite Elpidius, and entrusted under the direction of an old man Cappadocia. Sava spends the winter with him, dreaming of a silent hermit life, which he has longed for. Hearing again of Euthymius the Great “who shone with virtues and miracles in the desert east of Jerusalem, Sava longed to see him. Praying for the blessing of the elders, he set out. And arriving at the monastery of the great Euthymius, he spent a few days there Because the Venerable did not always come to the cathedral, but once or twice a week, and on certain days, and when the Sabbath came, Sava saw the Venerable Euthymius going to church, and he approached him earnestly begging him to receive him. But Euthymius, seeing him young, sent him to a monastery even further from Jerusalem, to the blessed Theoctist, ordering them to take care of this young monk, and prophesied of him that he would soon, by the grace of Christ, shine in monastic life more than many others, and that he would be a glorious teacher to all the Palestinian hermits, and that he would raise a monastery greater than all the monasteries in the country.
Admitted to the monastery by Theoctist, Sava surrendered himself entirely to God, and went through all the monastery’s obedience with relentless obedience, and calm obedience, and diligence. Capable and zealous for every service to God, he was entering in the church first and before all and was leaving it the last after everybody. Strong in soul, he was large and strong in body; and while the other monks cut in the desert one handful of reeds for the fire and carried them to the monastery, until then he cut and carried three. He carried both wood and water, making sure to serve everybody. For a long time he was the supervisor of mules. He also performed various other duties. And he did all that wholeheartedly and flawlessly, so that all the fathers and brothers in the monastery admired his diligence and kindness.
But the devil, wanting to distract him, invented a thing like this. There was a brother in that monastery, a native of Alexandria, named John. This brother received the news that his parents had died. Then the devil put in his mind a thought unworthy of a monk: to go and arrange the matter about the property left after his parents. He also annoyed the abbot Teoktist with frequent requests to let him go to Alexandria, together with Sava, because Sava, strong in body, can be of great help on the road. At the persistent requests of the monks, the abbot Teoktist finally relented, and let Jovan travel with Sava. And so they set off. Arriving in Alexandria, they set to work on the estate. But at that time, the parents of Blessed Sava, John and Sofia, happened to be in Alexandria, since John, as a royal official of a high military rank, was often sent to Alexandria. When they met the holy son Sava, they recognized him.
Then a new feat arose for Blessed Sava, and the struggle was greater than the first one when his uncles dragged him from the monastery to the world and from monasticism to marriage. Because his parents now greeted him with tears, prayers, flattery, mercy, and sweet words: to take off his black shirt and dress in bright clothes, to live in the image of them, and to enter the military service. However, it was clear to Blessed Sava that the meeting with his parents, and the fact that they knew him, was a purely devilish temptation; and he strongly opposed his natural feeling. For he renounced the love inherent in his parents, and rejecting their earnest pleas and many tears he became hard as a diamond and steadfast in his decision, and replied to his parents: I fear the One who said, “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me “(Mt 10:37, 38). How, then, will I surrender you to God, your vain life to the cross, and your worldly military service to spiritual military service? Because when the kings of the earth punish the soldiers who fled from the army, then the King of Heaven will not spare those who enlisted in His precious army, and then flee from it. – Finally, Blessed Sava said to his parents this: If you continue to send me to leave the wonderful military service of Christ, then I will no longer call you my parents.
Then John and Sophia saw that their son’s heart was inflexible, they stopped persuading him; and having tightened their hearts, they let him go with much weeping. But at the parting they begged him to buy for himself for the journey what he needed, and gave him forty gold pieces; However, he did not want to take anything. Finally, in order not to upset his parents completely, he took only three gold coins, and when he returned to the monastery, he handed them over to his abbot Theoctist.
When Sava’s tenth year of living in that monastery was coming to an end, the Venerable Theoctist died. In his place, the Venerable Euthymius appointed the virtuous monk Marin. But in two years he also died. After him, the gentle monk Longin became abbot. At that time, Blessed Sava was turning thirty. He addressed Abbot Longin with a request that, for the sake of the most solitary prayerful asceticism, he be allowed to be locked up in a cave, near the monastery, facing south, on a rock. Abbot Longin informed the great Euthymius in a letter about Sava’s wish. Venerable Euthymius, who had heard a lot about Sava’s flawless life, about his fasting and prayers, meekness and calmness, and about his other deeds pleasing to God, wrote to Longin: “Do not forbid Sava to do as he pleases.”
Initially, Blessed Sava would be ordered to stay in the cave five days a week. Then, at his request, he would be allowed to spend five years in it. His life in the cave was as follows: he fasted for five days, neither eating nor coming out of the cave; he was engaged in weaving baskets there, he wove ten of them a day, and in his mouth and mind he constantly prayed to God. On Saturdays, early in the morning, he went out of the cave to the monastery, carrying fifty baskets with him. On Saturday and Sunday he took part in the conciliar prayer, and, supporting himself with food, again on Sunday evening he went to the cave, carrying as many palm branches as he needed to weave fifty baskets. “Blessed Sava spent five years in that cave in such work and fasting. Then the great Eythumius took him with on hermitage feats as a perfect monk, who, although young in age, was equal in his eyes, to many aged fathers in virtues. That is why Jevtimije called him to the young old man: for young in body, he was old with his spiritual wisdom and old with his blameless life, so on the fourteenth day of January the great Euthymius came out of the laurel with him, taking with him the blessed Domentian, to spend the Holy Fortieth day to the Palm Sunday there, but once the old man wanted to walk all over the desert above the Dead Sea, and he came with both his disciples, Domentian and Sava, to the waterless places. The heat was great, and Blessed Sava got tired, so he fell exhausted from thirst, because he was not able to go further. Euthymius took pity on him, and moving away from him as far as he could throw a stone, he began to pray, saying: “Lord God, give water in this waterless land, to quench the thirst of a weary brother.” – And when he finished praying, he dug the ground three times with one tree that happened there, and immediately spring water flowed. Sava drank of that water, and was strengthened; and from that time he received divine power to indure in the wilderness. When Palm Sunday came, they returned to the monastery.
After a short time, our venerable and God-bearing father Euthymius reposed in Lord, during the times of Patriarch Anastasios in Jerusalem. After the reposing of Euthymius and the death of some other old fathers of the monastery, Venerable Sava, seeing that the rules of the monastery were changing, went to the eastern desert around Jordan, in which at that time Venerable Gerasim, as a bright star, illuminated with his life.
Blessed Sava was thirty-five years old when he settled in this desert alone, and struggled in fasting and unceasing prayer, cleansing himself from all impurity. Then the devil went to war against him. Once at midnight, when the saint was sleeping on the ground after many labors, the devil turned into a multitude of snakes and scorpions, and approaching Sava, they wanted to scare him. But straightway he stood up for prayer, and spoke the words of the psalm of David, Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror of the night; on the serpent and on the asp you will step (Ps. 90, 5. 13).
When the saint said this, the devil disappeared with his scarecrows at that hour. However, in a few days, the devil turned into a terrible lion again, and ran towards the saint as if he wanted to devour him; but running, he backed away; and running again, he backed away again. Seeing where the beast was lying for an hour, the Venerable said to him: If you have received from God the power to eat me, then why are you deviating? If not, then why bother in vain? Because by the power of my Christ, I will defeat you, lion! – And at that moment, the devil, who had appeared in the form of a beast, fled with shame. From that time on, God subdued all beasts and snakes to Venerable Sava, and he walked among them as among meek sheep.
Moving through the desert, Blessed Sava once met four very hungry and exhausted Saracens; he ordered them to sit down, and handed them in front of them from his robe a root called melagria, which he ate, and a heart of reed. They ate and strengthened themselves, and remembering the place of Sava’s abode, they left. After a few days, they came to him, bringing him bread, cheese and dates as a sign of gratitude for his kindness that fed them on the day of famine. Venerable Sava was shaken by this, and with tears he said to his soul: O woe, my soul! these people for our little good, done to them once, how grateful they are! And what do we do, receiving unspeakable gifts every hour from God, being ungrateful, living in laziness and reluctance, not keeping His holy commandments!
Then a monk named Ant, a lover of virtue, who had previously lived with the Venerable Theodosius for a long time, came to Venerable Sava; he fell in love with Blessed Sava, and remained living next to him. Once the Agarians attacked them, and sent one in front of them to kill them. But the venerable fathers prayed to God, and suddenly the earth opened and swallowed Hagar, and the other Hagarians, seeing this miracle, they became very frightened and fled.
Through his brother Ant, Blessed Sava met the Venerable Father Theodosius, and they gained great love among themselves. At the end of the fourth year of his stay in the desert, Saint Sava, visiting the desert, climbed a high hill once, where the blessed Empress Eudokia, the wife of Emperor Theodosius the Younger, gladly received a soul-beneficial teaching from the great Euthymius. Spending the night there in the usual prayers, Blessed Sava had a vision. He saw a bright angel of God showing him the valley, through which the stream once flowed south of Siloam, and said to him: If you want to inhabit this desert as a city, then turn to the east side of this stream, and you will see before you a cave that is not busy; ascend and dwell in it. He who gives his cattle food, and the crows that cry out to Him, He will also think of you. “
When the vision ended, and the day dawned, the Venerable Sava came down from the hill, and with God’s help he found the cave that the angel showed him in the vision, and settled in it. And he was then forty years old. That year, Patriarch Anastasia of Jerusalem reposed in Lord, leaving Martyrios on the patriarchal throne. That same year, Emperor Zeno, having killed the torturer Vasilisk, regained his imperial power.
The cave in which the Venerable Sava lived had a very uncomfortable entrance. So he hung a rope from the cave, which he used to descend from the cave when he went for water to the lake called Eptastom, which was fifteen stadia away from the cave. Living in this cave, the Venerable initially ate the grass that grew around it. And God, who commanded him to dwell there, sent him food through men, barbarians, as once through a raven to the prophet Elijah at the brook Horata. Because after some time, four Saracens, passing there, found the cave of the Venerable Sava, and their wish was to crawl into it, but they could not because of the very difficult ascent. The Venerable, seeing them from above, lowered the rope for them to climb on to him. Entering the cave, the Saracens found nothing with the blessed Sava, and marveled at his life and kindness. And feeling sorry for him, they agreed to bring him food. And so they came to him, often, bringing him bread, cheese, dates, and other food. And the Venerable spent five years alone in the cave, talking only with the one God, and defeating invisible enemies with silent prayers. Then it would be pleasing to God to entrust to him the souls of many and to make him a teacher and shepherd of the literal sheep. Namely: after his five years of solitary asceticism in the cave, many from various places began to come to him with the desire to live next to him. And he received them all with love, and gave everyone a comfortable place to live. And having made their cells, they lived pleasing to God, looking at the virtuous life of the Venerable Sava as an example. And in a short time there were gathered together about seventy brothers, among whom stood out: John who would then be the abbot of the new monastery; Jacob who built a monastery on the Jordan, called Pyrgion; Firmin and Sevirian, the former of whom established a monastery in Mahmas, and the latter a monastery in Variha; Julian – the builder of the monastery in Jordan, which was called Nesklerava, and many other holy men, whose names are written in the books of eternal life. All of them were the Venerable Sava, abbot, traveler and shepherd.
The Venerable assigned a cave and a cell in it to each of the brothers. And when the brothers multiplied, he began to build a tower with them on the hill, which would serve as a rampart and protection of the family. This served as the basis of his great laurel. And while a laurel was being built on the hill on the north side of the stream, the Venerable erected a small church in the valley, in the middle of a dried-up stream; and when any of the presbyters came to him, he would ask him to serve the holy liturgy. Because the Venerable, out of his humbleness, did not want to accept the priestly rank, nor did he ever want to rise from the monastic to the priestly rank.
There was a shortage of water in that place, as the spring was far away. And one night the saint prayed, saying: O Lord our God, if it is Your will that this place be settled in the glory of Your Most Holy Name, then look upon us, Your servants, and grant us water to quench our thirst! – While the saint was praying like that, he heard a voice from the stream; and looking to that side, in the moonlight, he saw a wild donkey digging the ground with his foot, pressing his lips to the excavated place and drinking water. The Venerable immediately went down, and began to dig himself where he saw the donkey. After digging a little, he found spring water, and a spring with abundant water was formed, which has since satisfied all the needs of the monastery, and has never diminished.
Again the second night, when Blessed Sava wanted to go around the stream and sing the psalms of David, a pillar of fire appeared at the very cliff on the west side of the stream; and the saint stood in prayer until dawn. At the dawn of the day, the saint went to the place where they saw the pillar, and found a large beautiful cave, in the form of a church, built by God’s hand and not by man’s; the wide entrance to it was from the south, and from the sunlight it was sufficiently illuminated. Having decorated that cave, Venerable Sava made a church out of it. And he ordered the brothers to gather in it every Saturday and Sunday for worship. He himself moved there, made himself a cell near that unmanufactured church on a high rock, and made a secret entrance to the church; through it he entered in the church, spent day and night in prayer. The number of brothers increased every day, so that there would be up to one hundred and fifty of them. And cells were built on both sides of the stream; at the same time, the glory of the Venerable Sava grew; and God-loving people brought him a lot of gold, which he used to build a laurel. Also, His Holiness Patriarch Martyrius of Jerusalem had great love for him, and he respected him very much, and sent him the necessary things.
Blessed Martyrius reposed in the Lord in the eighth year of his patriarchy, and the patriarchal throne received Sallust; Venerable Sava was then forty-eight years old. At that time in the monastery some monks, corrupt in soul, carnal in mind, who have no Spirit, rose up against the saint; and otherwise they have long devised unjust things against him and inflicted much misery on him in all possible ways. For weeds often grow in the midst of wheat and thorns in the vineyard; and among the apostles there is a traitor; and the prophet Elisha was an unfaithful disciple of Gehazi. So all the corrupt brothers, or better to say – false brothers, having devised evil against the saint, went to the Holy City to the patriarch, and begged him to appoint an abbot. When asked where they came from, they answered: We live next to a desert stream. – With this answer, they wanted to keep silent about the name of Blessed Sava, because they knew that his name was glorious and that everyone mentioned him with love. But the patriarch tried to say where they were from, and they, against their will, said that they were from a stream named after a monk named Sava. The patriarch asked: And where is Sava? – They, on the other hand, without answering the question, began to slander the Blessed One, saying that he was a simple and uninvolved man and that he could not lead so many brothers, and because of his rudeness and ignorance to manage so much laurel. They also added to their slander that Sava neither wants to receive the ordination himself, nor does he allow any of the brothers to do so.
While they were slandering the righteous before the patriarch, it happened that an honest and respectable man named Kirik, a presbyter of the most holy church of the Resurrection of Christ and a guardian of the Life-giving Cross of the Lord, was present there. Hearing their slander, he asked them: Did you receive Sava in that place, or did Sava receive you? – They answered: Sava received us. But he is simple and unable to govern us as we have multiplied. – Then Kirik said to them: When Sava was able to gather you in that desert place, the more he will be able, with God’s help, to feed you.
They fell silent, as they could not answer anything. And the patriarch, postponing the interrogation for tomorrow, immediately sent for Saint Sava, respectfully inviting him to himself, as if on the occasion of some other job. The Blessed One came, and the patriarch did not tell him anything about the slanderers, nor did he say anything to the slanderers, nor did he rebuke them, but he immediately ordained the Venerable Sava as a presbyter, although he did not want to. After consecrating him, the patriarch said to the slanderers: Here you have your father and the abbot of your laurel; he was chosen from above by God and not by men. I have only confirmed the Divine Choice.
Having said that, the patriarch took Saint Sava and those monks and went with them to the monastery, consecrated the church created by God, blessed the whole monastery, taught the brothers to obey their abbot, blessed Sava, and returned.
When Blessed Sava was fifty-three years old, Anastasios became king after the death of Zeno. That year, a God-pleasing man, an Armenian by birth, named Jeremiah, came to the monastery with two disciples, Peter and Paul. Venerable Sava was very happy for them, and gave them that cave, in which he himself lived at first when he was alone in the stream. And allow them to worship in the Armenian language in the small church on Saturdays and Sundays. And so the Armenians gradually multiplied in the monastery. At that time, our venerable father John, called The Quiet, came to the monastery He was a bishop in the city of Colonia; but, for God’s sake, he left his episcopate, and hiding his rank he lived in the monastery like a simple monk.
Venerable Sava imitated Saint Euthymius the Great, who usually went to the desert every year on January 14 and spent the entire Lent there. Following his example, the Venerable Sava acted in the same way that month, but he did not go to the desert on January 14, but waited for the twentieth day, to celebrate the feast of St. Euthymius the Great in the laurel. After that he went to the desert; and turning away from men he approached God by contemplation and prayer; and remained there until Palm Saturday.
One year, when, according to this custom, he went from the laurel to the desert and walked along the Dead Sea, he saw a small deserted island, and a desire arose in him to spend the days of fasting on it. And he went to him. But the demonic envy hindered him in that, and he fell into a pit that was there, from which, as if from a furnace, some steam and fire were coming out. There his face and chin were burned, and other parts of his body were injured, and he became very ill. And when he returned to the monastery, the brothers knew him only by his voice; so his face was burned. And he lay sick for many days, until some Divine power descended on him from above and healed him, and gave him strength on unclean spirits. And since then, his beard no longer grows as it used to, but remains small and sparse. And he thanked God for that, so that he would not be proud of the beauty of his beard.
The following year, according to his custom, the Venerable Sava went out into the desert with his disciple Agapit. After a few days Agapit lay on the sand from fatigue and hunger, and fell asleep; and Blessed Sava stood away from him and prayed. Then suddenly a huge lion appeared, stopped over the sleeping Agapit, and began to sniff him from head to toe. Seeing the lion above the disciple, Blessed Sava was afraid not to eat the sleeper, and immediately prayed fervently to God to save his disciple from the beast.
God answered his servant, shut the mouth of the lion and did no harm to Agapit, but as if beaten with a whip, he fled into the desert. Then he only touched the sleeper with his tail, and he woke up, and he was all shaken when he saw the lion, and ran to his father. Venerable Sava taught him not to indulge in long sleep, so as not to become prey to beasts, especially invisible ones.
One of the following years, the Blessed One, according to the custom, also walked with that disciple in the desert north of Jordan, and in one mountain he came across a cave and in it a clairvoyant hermit. When both of them composed a prayer, and entered into a conversation, the hermit asked: What motivates you, wonderful Sava, to come to me? or who showed you this place? Behold, by the grace of God I have been here thirty-eight years, and I have not seen any man; and how did you get here? – Blessed Sava answered: God who told you my name, He also showed me this place. – And after a soul-beneficial conversation, they kissed each other, and Sava and his student went to the desert. And when the time approached for them to return to the monastery, the Venerable Sava said to the disciple: Let us, brother, say goodbye to the servant of God in the cave. – And when they came, they found the old man kneeling facing east; so thinking that he was praying, they waited a long time. But when the day began to turn to evening, Blessed Sava, seeing that the old man did not rise from prayer, said: Surrender us to Christ, Father. – But there was no answer. The Blessed One then approached and touched the old man, and saw that he had reposed himself to Lord. Then he turned to the disciple and said to him: Come, child, let us bury the body of the saint; that is why God sent us here. – And after performing the usual funeral worship over the deceased, they buried him in the same cave, and after closing the entrance with stones, they returned to the monastery.
In the year that the church consecrated by God would be consecrated, the parent of Blessed Sava, John, who had great power in the Isaurian region, died in Alexandria, and his blessed mother Sophia, already very old, sold all her property, and came with a lot of gold ti Jerusalem to her son of Sava. He received her, and advised her to be tonsured into a nun. And she, having lived a little in the form of a nun, reposed in Lord. And the gold that she brought, Blessed Sava spent on the needs of the monastery and on the construction of accomodations. He built one accomodation in Jericho, for the care of travelers – a layman, and the other he built in the monastery, for the care of monks.
During the construction of these accomodations in the monastery, the Venerable Father Sava sent a brother with the monastery cattle to Jericho, to bring materials for the construction from there. On the way back, it was very hot again, and that brother was very thirsty on the way. As there was no water anywhere, because the land was desert and waterless, he fell exhausted from thirst. But remembering the holy old man, he said: God of my father Sava, do not leave me! – And at that moment a cloud appeared over him, and after pouring out the dew, he cooled him and the cattle that were carrying the material. And that cloud went over him all the way to the monastery, obscuring him and cooling him from the heat. And this would be the prayers of his holy father Sava, when he was mentioned during trouble.
To be continued…