This week in Christian history: Mary declared sinless, Saint Sabas dies

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, December 04, 2022

Saint Sabas dies – Dec. 5, 532

A Medieval icon of Saint Sabas (439-532). Also known as Sabbas the Sanctified, he was a notable proponent of monasticism in the Middle East and also debated heretics. | Public Domain

This week marks the anniversary of when Saint Sabas, a Middle Eastern Christian monk known for his defense of orthodoxy against a heresy known as Monophysitism, died at age 94.

A native of Asia Minor, Sabas founded a monastic community around Jerusalem and often engaged in intellectual battles with the Monophysites, who taught that Jesus had only one nature, instead of both a human and a divine nature.

“Sabas is credited with composing Palestine’s first monastic Rule of church services, the ‘Jerusalem Typikon,’ accepted by all the Palestine monasteries. He was also credited with many miracles, wise teachings, and battles against demons,” explained the Christian History Institute.

“One claim says he took over a lion’s cave and pacified the beast with his words. Crusaders took his relics to Venice in the twelfth century, but Pope Paul VI restored them to Sabas’s monastery in 1965 in an effort to build bridges with the Eastern Orthodox.”