Venerable Christopher the Roman of Palestine

Venerable Christopher, a Roman by birth, took monastic vows at the cenobitic monastery of St. Theodosius the Great, the Cenobiarch, near Bethlehem (Palestine). By day he performed monastic obediences alongside the brethren; in the evenings he withdrew to the cave where St. Theodosius himself and the monastery's first fathers had once prayed, performing a hundred prostrations on each of the 18 steps leading down into the cave, spending most of the night in prayer — such was his rule for 11 years.

He was once granted a vision of many lamps, symbolizing the spiritual labors of the monastery's former fathers, and heard a revelation that his own "lamp" had not yet been lit — thus understanding that still greater labor awaited him. He then withdrew to Mount Sinai, where he spent 50 years in the strictest solitary asceticism. Toward the end of his life a voice from on high commanded him to return to his home monastery "to rest with the fathers," where he reposed.

His feast is kept on August 30/September 12.

NOTE: not to be confused with the identically-named Martyr Christopher of Lycia (3rd century) — an entirely different person, era, and form of struggle (ascetic, not martyric). Sources disagree on the exact century (5th or 6th), so the dating is given approximately. The original stub was an unprocessed image caption from pravicon.com for a Serbian fresco (Church of Christ Pantocrator, Dečani, Kosovo, c. 1350) — it has been reworked into a coherent life.