Our Venerable Father John the Solitary of Jerusalem
Life
John the Solitary, also called John the Hermit, was a Palestinian ascetic of the sixth century who lived in a cave near Jerusalem, devoting his days to fasting and prayer. He is remembered as a model of voluntary poverty, owning nothing but an icon of the Theotokos before which an oil lamp was kept perpetually lit.
Although the surviving account of his life is brief, he is venerated in the Orthodox calendar on June 19 among the desert solitaries of the Holy Land, and the traditions attached to him center on his uncovetousness and on signs of divine providence said to have accompanied his pilgrimages.
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Ascetic Life
By the surviving tradition, John lived alone in a cave in the wilderness near Jerusalem, sustaining a regimen of fasting and continual prayer. His sole possession was an icon of the Theotokos, before which he maintained a burning lampada, a detail the synaxarion preserves as an emblem of his complete renunciation of material goods.
The same tradition relates that when a visiting monk questioned his stark and possessionless manner of living, the Elder replied that his cave held spiritual riches greater than any earthly treasure, a saying recorded as the expression of his ascetic outlook.
Pilgrimages and Traditional Accounts
The synaxarion relates that John often left his cave to venerate the holy places of Jerusalem and to travel to Mount Sinai, where he prayed at the graves of martyrs and ascetics. Before departing he would ask the blessing of the Theotokos and leave the lamp burning before her icon.
By tradition, however long he was absent, whether a month or as much as six months, on his return he found the lamp still alight and full of oil, an occurrence understood as a sign of divine providence. A further account holds that, meeting a lion on a narrow and overgrown mountain path, the beast rose on its hind legs and cleared the way so that the saint could pass.
