Venerable Euthymius the New of Thessalonica

Venerable Euthymius the New (born Niketas) was born in 824 in the village of Opso in Galatia, Asia Minor. As a young man he was married against his will by his parents to a neighbor's daughter; leaving his wife shortly after the wedding, he secretly withdrew to Mount Olympus in Bithynia, where he was tonsured. He later labored on Mount Athos, spending several years enclosed in the strictest fasting and silence, then on the island of Nea Kimi, and again on Athos, where he became one of the earliest known Athonite hermits and gathered disciples around him. He founded several monastic communities, including on Athos, which would later become a monastic republic. He was gifted with healing and clairvoyance and had contact with the imperial court in Constantinople. He spent his final years at a monastery he founded near Thessalonica, where he reposed in 889. He is venerated as one of the founding fathers of Athonite monasticism, a forerunner of St. Athanasius of Athos.