5th–6th century
Saint Theodosius the Cenobiarch
Organiser of communal (cenobitic) monasticism in Palestine.
Biography
Theodosius was born in the village of Mogarissos in Cappadocia, the son of the pious Proheresius and Eulogia, and lived from the reign of Emperor Leo I to that of Anastasius I (5th–6th century). While still young he renounced married life and set out for Jerusalem.
At Antioch he visited Symeon the Stylite, who blessed him, and in Judaea he trained as an ascetic under the hermit Longinus. Seeking greater solitude, he withdrew to a mountain cave which, according to tradition, the Magi had once spent a night in on their way home. As his reputation for ascetic life drew ever more monks to him, he founded a spacious cenobitic monastery.
He taught the ascetic life to hundreds of disciples and died at a great old age in 529. Clergy, monks and laypeople hurried to his funeral, including the Patriarch of Jerusalem.