Venerable, Archimandrite Dalmatus of Dalmatou (Constantinople)

In his youth, Venerable Dalmatus served in the army of the holy right-believing Emperor Theodosius the Great and enjoyed his special respect. Between 381 and 383, having left the world, he withdrew together with his son Faustus to the monastery of Venerable Isaac near Constantinople, where he took monastic vows. Upon the repose of St. Isaac, he was made abbot of this monastery. When the heresy of Nestorius arose in the Church, rejecting the title of Theotokos for the Most Holy Virgin, Venerable Dalmatus, despite his advanced old age, left the monastery for the first time in forty-eight years and, at the head of numerous clergy and monastics of Constantinople, processed through the streets of the capital, denouncing the heresy and affirming Orthodox teaching. At the Third Ecumenical Council convened in Ephesus in 431, which condemned Nestorianism, Venerable Dalmatus became one of the zealous defenders of the Orthodox faith; it was through a man disguised as a beggar, who hid a message in a hollowed-out staff, that St. Cyril of Alexandria managed to convey to Venerable Dalmatus important news of the Council's proceedings. After the Council, the holy fathers elevated Venerable Dalmatus to the rank of archimandrite of the monastery, which from then on came to be called the Dalmatou Monastery. He died at the age of ninety, after 446. His memory is kept on August 3/16 together with Venerables Isaac and Faustus.