Venerable (Monastic) 6th century

Venerable Menas of Sinai

died second half of the 6th century

A monk of Mount Sinai who lived in asceticism for more than fifty years.

Feast Day

January 5

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Commemorated as

Our Venerable Father Menas of Sinai

Life

Menas of Sinai was a monk of the monastery on Mount Sinai who lived in asceticism for many decades during the second half of the sixth century. The OCA synaxarion records that he spent more than fifty years in the community; the account preserved by Sanidopoulos numbers his years there at fifty-nine. He is commemorated on January 5.

Within the monastery Menas is remembered for his obedience and for the range of services he undertook. According to the tradition, he held the second place in rank after the superior and fulfilled the community's various offices over the course of his long life. He died peacefully.

Menas is best known through Saint John Climacus, who names him in The Ladder of Divine Ascent (Step 4:34) and holds him up as a model of obedience. By tradition, after his death myrrh flowed from his relics, which Climacus interpreted as a sign that the saint's labors had been accepted by God.

Timeline 2 moments Read Hide

6th century Asceticism at Sinai Menas entered the monastery on Mount Sinai and lived there in asceticism for some five decades.
second half of the 6th century Repose He died peacefully; tradition records that myrrh later flowed from his relics.

Contributions & Legacy

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Obedience and the Ladder of Divine Ascent

Saint John Climacus, himself an abbot of Sinai, recorded Menas in the fourth step of The Ladder of Divine Ascent, the chapter on obedience, presenting him as a model of that virtue. The tradition relates that on one occasion the superior tested Menas's patience by leaving him prostrate on the ground before granting his blessing; Menas is said to have recited the entire Psalter in his mind while he waited.

The same account reports that three days after Menas's death fragrant myrrh issued from his relics, described as flowing like two fountains from his feet. Climacus read this as a symbolic confirmation of the saint's hidden labors, writing that the sweat of his toils had been offered to God as myrrh and accepted.

Sources: OCA Synaxarion (oca.org), Jan 5