Venerable Thalelaeus the Hermit of Syria

Ascetic Life

At his hermitage Thalelaeus first lived in a tent, where, according to the synaxarion, demons assailed him with frightful apparitions and noises; by the power of God he overcame them and was troubled no more.

He then intensified his struggle, constructing a tiny cell described as roughly three feet high and two feet wide, so cramped that he could not sit upright, and he remained in it for about ten years. Later tradition, drawing on Baring-Gould, describes an even more severe device built of two wheels joined by wood into a kind of barrel, so low that his chin rested on his knees. He was known for weeping almost without intermission, the source of his epithet.

Mission and Wonders

By the account of the synaxarion, the Lord granted Thalelaeus the gift of wonderworking, and his miracles helped to draw the surrounding pagan population toward the faith. With the help of those he had converted, he destroyed the ruined pagan temple and built in its place a church in which daily services were held.

Sources

Thalelaeus is among the ascetics described in the Religious History of Bishop Theodoret of Cyrrhus, who visited him and recorded that he found him reading the Gospel. Theodoret reports that he saw the hermit himself, which makes the account an eyewitness testimony rather than a later legend.