This week’s open thread highlighted black saints from the past, that are relatively unknown.
Saint Bessarion, Wonderworker of Egypt was an Egyptian. He was baptized while still in his youth, and he led a strict life, striving to preserve the grace given him during Baptism. Seeking to become more closely acquainted with the monastic life, he journeyed to the holy places. He was in Jerusalem, he visited St Gerasimus in the Jordanian wilderness, he viewed other desert monasteries, and assimilated all the rules of monastic life.
Upon his return, he received monastic tonsure and became a disciple of St Isidore of Pelusium. St Bessarion took a vow of silence, and partook of food only once a week. Sometimes he remained without food or drink for forty days. Once, the saint stood motionless for forty days and forty nights without food or sleep, immersed in prayer.
He set out to lead the life of a wanderer and decided to live in the desert as a hermit. Credited for performing many miracles, Bessarion once converted salt water into sweet water simply by making the sign of the cross so he and his disciples could quench their thirst. He infamously brought rain during a particularly long drought and even reportedly walked across the Nile River.
St Bessarion received from God the gift of wonderworking. When his disciple was very thirsty, he sweetened bitter water. By his prayer the Lord sent rain upon the earth, and he could cross a river as if on dry land. With a single word he cast out devils, but he did this privately to avoid glory.
His humility was so great that once, when a priest ordered someone from the skete to leave church for having fallen into sin, Bessarion also went with him saying, “I am a sinner, too.” St Bessarion slept only while standing or sitting. A large portion of his life was spent under the open sky in prayerful solitude. He peacefully departed to the Lord in his old age.