Память преподобного Ильи Пустынника

The Monk Elijah entered the monastic life from his early youth and spent seventy-five years in complete solitude in a remote, harsh desert near Antinous of Thebaid 339. It is impossible to convey in words those great feats that he indulged in on the top of a wild desert mountain, from where he never went out into populated areas, and where a narrow path led to him among sharp stones, on which one could barely step foot. Zealous visitors found the old man sitting under the stone canopy of the cave, the darkness of which barely allowed him to see the hermit; He was shaking all over from decrepitude, for his life was more than one hundred and ten years. Other desert fathers said about the Monk Elijah that no one remembers when he settled on the mountain. In his old age, he ate only three small pieces of bread in the morning and the same amount in the evening, and three salted olives; in his youth, he ate food only once a week. He taught those who came to him for edification: “Do not surrender yourself to the power of Satan. There are three manifestations of devilish power that are caused by the sins of monks. The first is oblivion, the second is laziness, the third is lust. When oblivion attacks a monk, laziness is born, and from it lusts flow, and from lust a person falls. If a monk is attentive and has the fear of God, he has neither laziness nor bad desires - that is why Satan is powerless against such a person, he is not able to plunge such a person into sin, and such a person will be saved by God’s grace.” Showing a good example of truly monastic life, the Monk Elijah departed to the Lord in old age. The Thebaid region was named after Thebes, the main city of upper Egypt. Near the city of Antinous there were many hermit cells and monasteries. You might be interested in: