Venerable
Venerable Lazarus Of Galesion
ок. 968 — †7 ноября 1053
Also known as: Лев (мирское имя)
Venerable Lazarus of Galesion — a stylite, a monk of the Lavra of St. Sabbas the Sanctified in the Judean desert, who later labored on a pillar near Ephesus and on Mount Galesion, where he founded three monasteries (the Savior, the Theotokos, and the Resurrection); he enjoyed the trust of Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos.
Venerable Lazarus, secular name Leo, was born around 968 in a village near Magnesia on the Meander, the fifth child of Niketas and Irene. From age 6 he studied under the priest Leontius, then at nearby monasteries. At about 18 he set out on pilgrimage toward Jerusalem, stopping at the shrine of Archangel Michael at Chonae; he spent about seven years at a monastery in Attalia, where he received monastic tonsure with the name Lazarus.
Around 991-993 he reached the Holy Land and entered the Great Lavra of St. Sabbas the Sanctified in the Judean desert, serving as cantor for about six years; he was ordained deacon and then presbyter by the patriarch himself. After the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre by Caliph al-Hakim (1009), he received a revelation during Lenten prayer to return to Asia Minor.
Having visited the "Wondrous Mountain" of St. Symeon the Younger the Stylite near Antioch, he settled near Ephesus at a small monastery of the Great Martyr Marina, where a pillar was built for him — the beginning of a forty-year stylite struggle. Around 1019 he moved to Mount Galesion, occupying a cave once used by the monk Paphnutius. He founded three monasteries there: the Savior (his base for about 12 years), the Theotokos (founded c. 1030-1031, after a vision of a fiery pillar from earth to heaven with hosts of angels), and finally the largest, the Resurrection (founded c. 1042).
He led an extremely severe ascetic life: he wore iron chains beneath his garments, ate only cooked vegetables without oil, spent most of Great Lent without food (except on Saturdays and Sundays), and slept sitting in a chair in an unroofed cell atop his pillar. Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos held him in trust and sought his spiritual counsel; according to tradition, the saint predicted the emperor's return from exile on Lesbos. When the emperor asked him to move his monastery closer to Ephesus, Lazarus refused, insisting that the very site of Galesion had been appointed to him by Christ.
He reposed on November 7, 1053, at about age 86; by then the monasteries he had founded numbered several hundred monks. His disciple Gregory the Cellarer composed his Life shortly after his death.
His feast is kept on November 7/20.
IMPORTANT CORRECTION: category righteous→venerable — Lazarus was a monk and stylite, already reflected in the stub's own text ("venerable"), which contradicted the stated category.