Our Venerable Father Sabbas the Sanctified

 

Today the Church commemorates Our Venerable Father Sabbas the Sanctified. This saint is pivotal for our Church in ways that require deep explanation and meditation. First of all, we should focus our minds on the name that the Church uses when she commemorates this great saint. He is only one of two in the entire calendar year who is referred to as "the sanctified." What does this mean? Are not all saints "sanctified." Yes, assuredly, but the Church means to point to a particular life and growth in virtue when she assigns this surname to these two particular persons.

First of all, we should look at the other saint who is called by the same adjective "the sanctified." This is our Venerable Father Theodore the Sanctified. Theodore is the Egyptian monk, who was the disciple of Saint Pachomius, the founder of common life monasticism in the region of upper Egypt. All his adult life, Theodore was the close associate of Saint Pachomius and was groomed by Pachomius to become his successor as the archimandrite of all the monasteries of Upper Egypt. Nevertheless, when Pachomius died, the community of monks passed over Theodore, electing the elderly Saint Orsisius to succeed Pachomius as archimandrite. Only after the death of Orsisius did the community finally ratify Pachomius' original intention and make Thedore the superior of the monasteries.

Even this very broad outline of his life gives us a hint of why the Church designates Saint Theodore as "the sanctified." Theodore was a disciple. He gave himself freely to discipline. He fully embraced the slow martyrdom of the virtue of obedience. He became fully conformed to Christ by being obedient unto death. All the many episodes that we have about Theodore in the written lives of Saint Pachomius show us this truth.

Today's saint, Our Venerable Father Sabbas the Sanctified lived a very similar life about two hundred years after Saint Theodore the Sanctified went to his reward to enjoy the Kingdom of Heaven. Sabbas even started out his monastic life in the same country, Egypt, but shortly moved to the monasteries in the Judean wilderness near the Holy City Jerusalem. There, he became a disciple of Saint Euthymius the Great, just as Theodore had become a disciple of Pachomius. Sabbas embraced the martyrdom of the virtue of obedience, becoming obedient to Euthymius, his spiritual guide. Just like Theodore before him, he was rejected by his community, which preferred to be governed by a monk ordained to the priesthood. Later, after becoming the archimandrite of the monasteries in the Judean wilderness, he was still obedient. He was obedient even unto death, the death of the cross as God willed it for him in his particular circumstances. What God willed, Sabbas accepted without question and without complaint.

So, why is Sabbas so important to us? Well, as an old man, he wrote down the particulars of his way of life, so that his disciples could have a guide to the discipline of the Gospel after his death. This writing is called the Typikon of the Great Lavra of Saint Sabbas the Sanctified. When public worship in the city of Constantinople was restored in 1267, after sixty-three years of Latin occupation, Sabbaite monks were brought to the capital to staff the churches. They brought the Typikon with them. The services that are described in the Typikon are what we today refer to as "the Byzantine Rite."

The way of holiness that is marked out by Theodore and Sabbas is open to us as well. We are called to be disciples, that is to embrace discipline. We too can become conformed to Christ by becoming obedient unto death, the death of the cross. We do this in the same way that Theodore and Sabbas and did by accepting what God wills for us day by day and moment by moment. In this way, we too can become "sanctified" by sharing in God's life and grace.