Venerable Paisius the Great

Life

An Egyptian by birth and language. According to a vision in a dream, his mother dedicated him to the service of God. As a young man he came to the Venerable Pambo, who received him as a disciple and as a fellow student of the Venerable John Colobos, who also described the life of Paisius. To the joy of his spiritual father, Paisius added labor to labor and ascetical struggle to struggle. The Prophet Jeremiah appeared to him several times, whom he especially loved and more frequently read; the angels of God also appeared to him often, and even the Lord Christ Himself. "Peace to thee, My beloved pleaser!" the Lord Christ said to him. By great grace from God, Paisius had a special gift of abstinence from food. He often did not taste bread for fifteen days, still more often for a week, and once, according to the testimony of John Colobos, he lived seventy days without tasting anything. He had a great battle with the spirits of wickedness, who appeared to him sometimes as they truly are and sometimes in the form of bright angels. But the grace-filled servant of God never allowed himself to be deceived or deluded. He was a clairvoyant and wonderworker renowned throughout all Egypt. He departed to eternity in the year 400. The Venerable Isidore of Pelusium transferred his relics to his own monastery and honorably buried them.