The Sunday of John of the Ladder

The author of the famous "Ladder" came from an unknown place to Mount Sinai as a sixteen year old boy and remained there, first as a novice, then as a hermit and finally as abbot of Sinai, until he died at the age of eighty, in about 649. His biographer, the monk Daniel, said of him: "He brought his body up to Mount Sinai, but his spirit he brought up to the Mount of Heaven."

He spent his first nineteen years in obedience to his spiritual father, Martyrios. Anastasius of Mount Sinai, who saw John once as a young man, foretold that he would be abbot of the monastery. After the death of his spiritual father, John took himself off to a cave, where he lived for twenty years in strict asceticism. A disciple of his, Moses, relates a story how John saved his life by praying for him when he perceived danger and was saved at the last moment.

At the importunate urging of the brethren, John accepted the abbacy, and guided their souls to salvation with loving zeal. He once heard a monk reproach him for being too verbose. He was not in the least angered, but was silent for an entire year, not uttering a single word until the brethren begged him to speak. He then began to instruct them on the wisdom which God had endowed him.

During the time he was silent in his cave, John wrote many instructive books, of which the most famous, "The Ladder of Divine Ascent", is much read to this day. It describes the way to raise the soul to God as if on a ladder. Before his death, John appointed his brother George to the abbacy, but George began to grieve greatly at the approaching parting with John. Then John said that if he was found worthy to stand close to God in the next world, he would pray that George would be taken to heaven the same year. So it came to pass that John fell asleep in the Lord in 649. His brother George followed him ten months later.

From 'The Prologue From Ochrid'