Venerable Paisius the Great

Ascetic life

Paisius trained in the Egyptian sketes under Saint Pambo (commemorated July 18), known for strict obedience and fasting. As one feat of self-discipline he is said to have kept his eyes cast downward for three years to guard his senses.

His fasting was extreme. According to the synaxarion he progressed from going without food for a week, then two weeks; on occasion, after partaking of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, he is said to have survived without food for seventy days.

Withdrawing into the Nitrian desert in search of solitude, he lived in a cave carved by his own hands. A number of monks and laymen gathered around him, and a monastery was established under his spiritual fatherhood.

Visions of Christ

The synaxarion relates that Christ appeared to Paisius and revealed to him in a vision that through his labors the Nitrian wilderness would come to be inhabited by ascetics, with a promise of divine provision for monks who kept the commandments.

By tradition the angels of God, and the Lord Himself, appeared to him a number of times in the course of his ascetic life.

Relics & Shrines

Saint Paisius was buried by the monks at his repose. His relics were afterward transferred by Saint Isidore of Pelusium (commemorated February 4) to his own monastery and placed beside the relics of his friend Saint Paul.

By tradition his relics rest in the Monastery of Saint Pishoy (Paisios) in the Nitrian Desert of Egypt (Wadi Natrun), where the body is reported to remain in an incorrupt state.

Miracles & Traditions

Historically Documented: The synaxarion records his repose at a great old age in the fifth century and the later transfer of his relics by Saint Isidore of Pelusium.

Traditional Accounts: Tradition holds that Christ appeared to Paisius repeatedly—by some accounts as an elderly stranger whom the saint carried, and as a poor visitor whose feet he washed—and that his relics work healings and miracles to the present day. Coptic tradition further records that he bound his hands and hair to the ceiling of his cell to resist sleep during night prayers, a reputation said to have drawn a visit from Saint Ephrem the Syrian.