Synaxarion of our Venerable Mother Isidora the Fool for Christ

Synaxarion

By Hieromonk Athanasios of Simonopetra (1987)

On this day (May 1st), we remember our Venerable Mother Isidora.

Verses

Your life is a radiant example for monastics, Isidora,
A gift from God who prefers the humble.
Isidora was secretly adorned with an immortal wreath.

This most blessed and most venerable Mother of ours, Isidora, flourished in the middle of the 4th century A.D., in the women’s cenobitic community established by the great luminary Pachomios and called that of the Tabennesiotes. Feigning foolishness and assuming the role of one possessed by a demon, she was dishonored by all her fellow nuns, rejoicing in such dishonors as in great wealth. Yet she did not escape the all-beholding eye of Christ the Pantocrator, and the holiness of her life was revealed through an angelic vision to the great ascetic and disciple of Venerable Anthony, the most holy Pitirim, who, before the entire sisterhood of the monastic women, made known the hidden treasure of the despised Venerable Isidora. But she, not enduring the wonder and the honor thereafter being shown to her, secretly fled to an unknown and desert place, seeking to please and to be acceptable to God alone, by Whom also she receives the just reward of her lifelong humility, having become a wondrous example for all the pious and God-loving.

Prologue in Sermons: May 1

 

True Friends Are An Invaluable Treasure

May 1

(A discourse on love, for the sake of which God forgives sins.)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

Wise people say that a true friend is an invaluable treasure. Is this really so?

Once, two monks were going to the marketplace to sell their handiwork. On the way, they parted in different directions, and during that time one of them fell into sin. When they returned home, the monk who had not sinned said to the one who had: “Come, brother, let us go to the cell.”

But he replied: “I will not go.”

“Why?” asked the pious monk.

“I have fallen into a mortal sin,” answered the fallen one.

The one who had not sinned, wishing to save his friend who was near despair, used a kind of wise deception. He said to him: “Do you know? Without you, I also fell into the same sin as you. But what is to be done? We must ask God for forgiveness.”