Saint Eusebios of Asikhan
Today in the Holy Orthodox Church, the fifteenth of February, we commemorate the eremitical Saint Eusebios. His Life is also narrated by Blessed Theodoret of Kyrrhos’s Religious History. Saint Eusebios approached God in solitude in the desert, and his way of life is marked by ascetical extremes.
Theodoret does not inform us about the early life of Saint Eusebios [Gk. Εὐσέβιος, Ar. Yûsâbiyyûs يوسابيوس]; neither his parentage nor his birthplace are known. He was probably born around the year 350. He was apparently raised in the company of holy men and educated in a monastery, and desired for himself to become an ascetic and solitary in the wilderness when he came of age. He settled on a mountain ridge near a Syrian village called Asikhan [Gr. Ἀσιχᾶν], and built for himself a dwelling made of piled stones without mortar, which was also unroofed and open to the sky.
Eusebios lived a life of strict fasting and constant prayer under the open sky. He was at all times exposed to the elements. He covered himself in animal skins, and ate for his food chickpeas and beans soaked in water, as well as a few dried figs in an attempt to keep up the strength of his meagre body. Even when he was a very old man and had lost most of his teeth, he did not vary in his diet. Nor did he exchange his wonted dwelling-place for one more comfortable, but endured freezing winters and baking summers and exhaustive labours until he was quite shrivelled and wasted in body. He had trouble even keeping his girdle up about his waist, and sewed it into the cloth of his tunic to keep it from falling.
Eusebios led a life of contemplation of God; and he tended to avoid discourse with other people. At first he extended his hospitality to a few who came to him for advice and guidance on both spiritual and mundane matters. He would discourse with them on the divine oracles and thus leave them satisfied. However, upon their leaving, he asked them to seal his doorway with mud. When even these conversations became too taxing for him, Saint Eusebios rolled a heavy stone in front of the doorway of his cell. He communicated with others only through a hole in the stone wall, such that his face could not be seen, and took his food also through that hole. At last he refused to converse with anyone save Theodoret himself, through the same aperture. He would have long conversations with Bishop Theodoret on heavenly matters, and sometimes would detain him longer to speak. Theodoret remembered the sweetness of these long discourses fondly.
However, people kept visiting his cell on the mountain ridge, and causing him great vexation of spirit. With an effort that would have taxed even a young person in the full bloom of health, he clambered out of his enclosure and fled to a nearby cœnobitic community. He did not join the community, but continued his usual eremitical labours by the corner of one wall of the monastery enclosure, with the permission and blessing of the abbot. This abbot had a high opinion of Saint Eusebios, and said that during Great Lent he would take only fifteen dried figs for his sustenance throughout the seven weeks of the fast. Saint Eusebios lived past ninety years, even though his ascetic exertions had worn and wasted his flesh. At last he reposed in the Lord within the walls of his adoptive monastery, around the year 444. Holy hermit Eusebios, pray to God for us!
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