Venerable Mark the Ascetic

Venerable Mark the Ascetic (the Faster, the Hermit) was an Egyptian monk and ecclesiastical writer of the 4th–5th centuries. According to Palladius of Helenopolis, he became a monk around age forty and spent more than sixty years on the Nitrian Mountain in strict asceticism, living to great old age. He left a rich ascetical legacy: the treatise "On the Spiritual Law," "Two Hundred Chapters on the Spiritual Law," and other works later included in the patristic collection known as the Philokalia. In his writings St. Mark expounded teaching on spiritual struggle against the passions, the significance of baptismal grace, and the labor of prayer, exerting significant influence on the later ascetical tradition of Orthodox monasticism. Some scholars believe several spiritual authors may have written under the name Mark the Ascetic, but church tradition venerates him as a single saint. His feast is kept March 5/18, and also May 20/June 2.