The monastery and its rule
The community Gerasimus founded lay in the desert east of Jericho, near the Jordan River; by one account the site stood roughly 25 miles from Jerusalem and close to the river itself. He organized it as a combined house in which novices lived together in a common building while the more experienced monks lived apart in a cluster of small cells. By the accounts of his life the brethren numbered about seventy.
The rule he established was severe. For five days of the week each monk kept silence and solitude in his cell, occupying himself with handicrafts such as weaving mats or baskets from palm leaves, together with prayer. On those days the monks ate no cooked food and kindled no fire, taking only dry bread, dates, roots, and water. On Saturday and Sunday all gathered at the monastery for the Divine Liturgy and a common meal.
The monks lived in deep poverty, each possessing only an old garment, a reed mat to sleep on, and a small vessel for water; they left their cells unlocked so that any of the brethren might freely enter. Gerasimus himself was noted for extreme asceticism: during Great Lent he was said to eat nothing at all until the day of Pascha, when he received the Holy Mysteries. His disciple Cyriacus, commemorated on September 29, had been sent to him by Euthymius the Great.