Venerable Mark of Thrace

Life

He is also called the Athenian, for Athens was his birthplace. When he completed his higher studies in Athens, his parents died. He reflected within himself that death was inescapable for him as well, and that one ought to prepare in good time for an honorable departure from this world. Having distributed all his possessions to the poor, he sat upon a plank in the sea with firm faith in God's help and with prayer that God would lead him wherever it was His will. And God the Provider preserved him and brought him to Libya (or Ethiopia), to a mountain called Thrace. On that mountain Mark labored in asceticism for ninety-five years, seeing neither man nor beast. For a full thirty years he waged a terrible battle with evil spirits and was tormented by hunger and thirst, by cold and heat. He ate earth and drank seawater. After thirty years of the fiercest suffering the vanquished demons fled from him, and an angel of God began to bring him food each day, in the form of bread, fish, and fruit. Shortly before his death he was visited by Saint Serapion, who afterward made known the wondrous life of this Mark. Mark asked Serapion whether there were now Christians in the world who, if they were to say to a mountain, "Rise up from here and cast thyself into the sea," it would so come to pass. At that moment the mountain on which they stood began to move like the sea. But Mark waved his hand and stopped it. Such wonderworking power did this man of God possess. Before his death he prayed for the salvation of mankind and surrendered his soul to God. Saint Serapion saw the angels take the soul of Mark and a hand extended from heaven that received it. Saint Mark lived one hundred and thirty years and reposed around the year 400.