Venerable Cosmas the Hermit (6th c.) — August 3 / August 16 (Julian Calendar)

On this day, August 3 according to the Julian Calendar (August 16 civil calendar), the Georgian Orthodox Church commemorates the Venerable Cosmas the Hermit.

The venerable Cosmas the Hermit lived in the sixth century in Palestine, in the desert of Pharan. The account of holy Cosmas is found in the “Spiritual Meadow” of John Moschus. The blessed father was a strict faster and a firm defender of the Orthodox faith and of the dogmas of the Church, deeply versed in the Holy Scriptures and in the writings of the Fathers of the Church.

Cosmas had a special reverence for the writings of Athanasius the Great, and would say: “If you come upon a word of holy Athanasius and have no paper at hand, write it down upon your own garment.”