On this day, July 7 according to the Julian Calendar (July 20 civil calendar), the Georgian Orthodox Church commemorates Venerable Thomas of Maleon.
Venerable Thomas of Maleon was a military commander before becoming a monk. A valiant warrior, he always emerged victorious from the battlefield, lacking neither glory nor honor — yet the vanity of the world could no longer fill his heart.
One day he received a letter from his brother filled with familiar reflection on the emptiness of worldly things. Thomas cast aside vanity, removed his military garb, and finally left behind his family in Egypt.
He took up the solitary life on Mount Maleon in southern Greece. Humility, poverty, sleeplessness, prayer, and love — this was his life. He spent ten years in this ascetic struggle until his soul was wholly freed from the earthly world.
His biographer writes that a choir of angels carried his soul to heaven. Venerable Thomas of Maleon reposed in the tenth century.
May the intercessions of Venerable Thomas of Maleon be with us all.