Venerable Marēs the Cantor of Omeros

Saint Publius shares his feast-day with another Syrian ascetic, the venerable Saint Marēs, who lived in a village called Omeros in the vicinity of Kyrrhos. He was personally known to Bishop Theodoret of Kyrrhos. He had already reposed in the Lord by the time Blessed Theodoret wrote his Religious History, but he is nonetheless commemorated with careful attention. Here is what Blessed Theodoret has to say of Mares:

There is a village called by us Omeros. Here the inspired Maris built a small hut and continued immured in it for thirty-seven years. It received much rain from the neighbouring mountain; in the winter season it even poured out streams of water. Both townsmen and countrymen are aware what harm this causes bodies; to the peasants are manifest the diseases that are produced thereby. Nevertheless, not even this induced this sacred person to change his cell, but he maintained his endurance until he had accomplished his course.

He passed the earlier part of his life in the labours of virtue, whence he preserved purity in both body and soul. This he told me plainly, informing me that his body had remained chaste, just as it had left his mother’s womb, and although he had taken part in many festivals of martyrs when young, and captivated the crowds with the beauty of his voice—for he continued for a long time to be a cantor, and was radiant in bloom of body. Nevertheless, neither his bodily beauty nor his brilliance of voice nor his mixing with the multitude injured his beauty of soul, but living like recluses he looked after his own soul, and then increased his virtue through the labours of reclusion.

I often enjoyed his company; he would tell me to unblock the door, embrace me as I entered and make extended discourses on philosophy. He was remarkable too for his simplicity, and utterly abhorred subtlety of character; and he loved poverty more than the greatest wealth. During a life of ninety years he wore clothing made of goat’s hair; bread and a little salt supplied his need for food.

Having desired for a long time to witness a celebration of the spiritual and mystical sacrifice, he asked for the offering of the divine gift to be made there. I consented gladly. Bidding the divine vessels be brought—the place was not distant—and using the hands of deacons as an altar, I offered the divine and saving sacrifice. He was filled with every spiritual joy and thought he was seeing heaven, and said that he had never experienced such delight. I myself, whom he loved so warmly, thought I would be wronging him if I did not eulogise him even after death, and that I would be wronging others if I did not put forward this excellent philosophy for imitation. And now, after begging to receive help from him, I shall bring this account to an end.

The footnotes of the account of Saint Marēs’s life explain, that the feast-days of the martyrs in the church of fourth-century Syria were celebrated as actual feasts, and had inherited some of the character of pagan rites. The classical segregations of men and women from each other were, ‘for a delightful and perilous moment’, broken down at these community feasts, and occasional excesses did occur on account of this mingling of the sexes and the presence of alcohol and good food. Thus, it is necessary to read Bishop Theodoret’s commentary on Marēs’s comportment on saints’ feast-days, and he a ‘beautiful youth’, as a real test of his chastity.

It is also necessary to remember that hermits of this sort communed very rarely. Saint Mary of Ægypt, after all, waited seventeen years to receive the Eucharist, after she became an ascetic. But here we may take Theodoret somewhat at face value. Saint Marēs’s awe and joy at receiving the particles of Christ’s flesh and blood are testament not only to his having rarely received them, but also the simplicity of soul and doyikayt of spirit (to again appropriate the highly-Yiddish political term for religious ends) with which he did so. Holy and chaste hermit Marēs, gifted with outward beauty and yet valuing only the inward, pray unto Christ our God that he may have mercy upon us sinners!