Venerable Onuphrius the Great

Saint Onuphrius the Great was one of the great fathers of fourth-century Egyptian monasticism, who labored in the depths of the Thebaid desert. According to tradition he was born around 320 and, as a youth, was raised in the monastery of Erete near Hermopolis, where the elders' accounts of ancient hermits who had given themselves wholly to God in solitude kindled in him a desire to imitate them. Leaving the monastery in secret, he withdrew into the desert, where he spent sixty years in the strictest asceticism — without shelter or clothing, sustained only by what God provided: a wonder-working palm tree that bore fruit and a spring of water that appeared near his cave, and at times he was communed by an angel. Shortly before his death he was visited by the monk Paphnutius, who was wandering the Egyptian deserts in search of ascetics. Onuphrius recounted his life to him and charged him to make the desert-dwellers of the Thebaid known to all Christians for the salvation of souls, then peacefully gave up his spirit in prayer. He died around the year 400; Paphnutius, aided by God, buried his body.