The Monk Rabula

Commemorated on February 19

The Monk Rabula was born in the Syrian city of Samosata and he received an excellent education. While still young, he accepted monasticism and asceticised in the deserts and on the mountains, after the manner of the holy Prophet Elias (Elijah, Comm. 20 July) and Saint John the Baptist of the Lord (Comm. 7 January, 24 February, 25 May, 24 June, 29 August, 23 September, 12 October). Somewhat later Saint Rabula went over to Phoenicia, where for a long while he asceticised and was glorified by graced spiritual gifts. The emperor Xeno gave the Monk Rabula monetary help for building a monastery, erected with the assist of the Beruit bishop John. In the surroundings of the new monastery lived many a pagan, who gradually were all converted to Christianity through the efforts of the monastery inhabitants. Under Xeno's successor Anastasias (491-518), the Monk Rabula came to Constantinople, and again having received financial means from the emperor, he built still several more monasteries in various places. One of them was named after the holy ascetic. The Monk Rabula spent all his life at work, and always he was gentle and kind and well-disposed towards people, together with which he was also a man of great prayer. He lived to be 80 and before death he heard a voice: "Come unto Me all who labour and art heavily burdened" (Mt. 11: 28). After a short illness the Monk Rabula reposed to God, in about the year 530.