Venerable Or the Monk (†c. 390) — August 7 / August 20 (Julian Calendar)

On this day, August 7 according to the Julian Calendar (August 20 civil calendar), the Georgian Orthodox Church commemorates Venerable Or the Monk.

The Venerable Or the Monk withdrew from this world while still in his youth, went out to the desert of the Thebaid, and lived there for many years in the strict manner of a hermit elder. When he had already grown old in his labors, an angel appeared to the ascetic and announced to him that the Lord was entrusting to him the care of the souls of those who would desire to live under his guidance. The Lord granted him the gift of reading the Holy Scriptures, although from childhood he had been unlettered.

Little by little a numerous brotherhood gathered around the Venerable Or; a community was founded, and the blessed one became its spiritual father. He would often recount to his disciples the temptations that fall upon monks who labor in solitude, yet he told of everything as though he knew of it only from the lives of hermits he had known. The venerable father concealed his own struggles; he discerned every thought and every action of his disciples, and no one dared to deceive him. Having attained a deep old age, the saint founded several monasteries in which more than a thousand monks pursued the ascetic life. The blessed Or reposed around the year 390, at the age of ninety.