Today our Church recalls one the important saints, Our Venerabe Father Savva (Saba or Sabbas) the Sanctified.
St Savva first entered a monastery near his home in Cappadocia, but in the year 457 he travelled to Jerusalem and sought out St Euthymius. After spending some time under his instruction, Savva spent several years in seclusion in the Kedron wilderness. He was soon surrounded by followers. He organized them into a semi-eremitical community known as a lavra, which consisted of caves in a wild gorge in the wilderness between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. The reputation he gained for wisdom and holiness earned him an unsought role in ecclesiastical history. The patriarch of Jerusalem ordained Savva priest and made him his vicar, or archimandrite, over all the eremitical settlements in Palestine.
St Savva, together with St Euthymius, was responsible for keeping the vast number of monks in Jerusalem and the rest of Palestine loyal to the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon concerning the two natures of Christ.
Savva was 93 when he died on this date in 532. The Typicon of St Savva, while probably not his actual composition, had enormous influence on the shape of worship in orthodox churches (who pray the Divine Liturgies of St John Chrysostom and St Basil).
In 1256 the Crusaders removed the body of St Savva to Venice, where it was enshrined until 1965 when Pope Paul VI returned it to the lavra that is today known as Mar Savva. This lavra has a history of nearly fifteen hundred years, which makes it one of the oldest inhabited monasteries in the Christian world today. (NS)
St. Sabbas lived from 439-532. His connection with the Feast of Christmas is that, like Christ, he was dedicated to God from the beginning of his life, imitating him from his birth Therefore, he was called “the sanctified one.” He entered the monastery at the age of eight. He was the founder of the St. Sabbas monastery in the area of Bethlehem, close to the place of our Lord’s birth. It was the Typicon (the Rule of Life for a monastery) of this monastery that became the model for the Byzantine order of the Divine Office.