Saint Anthony Zaccaria

"That which God commands seems difficult and a burden. . . . The way is rough; you draw back; you have no desire to follow it. Yet do so and you will attain glory."

Antony studied medicine at the University of Padua. In 1524, at the age of 25, he set up his practice in his hometown. As a medical man he found himself ministering not only to the sick but also to the dying and the bereaved. He found man and women sick not only in the body but spiritually, and so he turned to the study of theology to learn more about the comfort and ways of God.

By 1528, it seemed natural that the young doctor should be ordained as a secular priest who pursued a spiritual and corporeal ministry. Soon he moved to work in Metan near Milan. His zeal, molded on that of Saint Paul, knew no bounds.

In 1530, he and a few other priests, including Venerable Bartholomew Ferrari and Venerable James Morigia, founded the congregation of Clerks Regular of Saint Paul, the members of which were neither monks nor friars but lived under a rule "to revive the love of divine worship and a true Christian way of life by continual preaching and faithfully administering the sacraments."

They worked among the plague-stricken Milanese, in the midst of wars, and during Luther's reforms. The group so invigorated the city's spiritual life that it was approved by Pope Clement VI in 1533 with Antony as its first provost general. The order became known as the Barnabites when, in the last year of Antony's life, the church of Saint Barnabas in Milan became the order's headquarters.

Antony resigned in 1536, helped spread the community, and worked ceaselessly to reform the Church. Under his direction, Louisa Torelli founded the congregation of women called Angelicals, who protected and rescued girls who had fallen into disreputable lives. Antony was only 37 when he died as a result of his unceasing apostolic toil (Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley, Delaney, Encyclopedia, White).

To avoid being named abbot of Saint Michael's when the abbot, Saint Michael Maleinos, died, Athanasius hid in a cell at Karyes, changed his name, and pretended to be illiterate. He migrated to Mount Athos in Greece. Mount Athos, one of the three peaks on the Chalcedonian Peninsula which juts out into the Aegean Sea, is one of the most exquisitely lovely places in the world. It is a land of red and ocher and gold, of cypresses and begonias and bougainvilleas, of fantastic roofs and brilliant sunlight, of sparkling sea and arid mountain.

Saint Athanasius was not the first holy man to live on Mount Athos, for since the 9th century anchorites, such as Peter the Athonite and Euthymius the Thessalonian, had lived in caves among the rocks.

When he reached Mount Athos in 958, an old friend from Constantinople, Nicephorus Phocas, asked his help in preparing an expedition against the Saracens in 961. Phocas insisted on appointing him almoner of his fleet.

On its successful completion, Athanasius returned to Mount Athos and with money given him by a grateful Phocas began the first monastery on Athos in 961. Athanasius wanted to found a new kind of monastery, the so-called idiorhythmic monastery, where each inmate could follow his own rhythm and tempo. His hope was that anchorites, hermits, wandering monks, and cenobites could all live together in his laura.

When Nicephorus Phocas became emperor in 963, the year the monastery was dedicated, Athanasius fled to Cyprus to avoid being called to court, but the emperor found him, reassured him, and gave him money to continue his work on Athos.

Athanasius encountered great opposition from hermits living on the mountain long before he had arrived there as he attempted to install the laura system there. He escaped two murder attempts, and resistance ended only when Emperor John Tzimisces forbade any opposition to Athanasius.

In time he became superior over 58 communities of monks and hermits on the mount. Thousands of monks still live and pray there today in 20 monasteries; it is now and has been for centuries the center of Eastern Orthodox monasticism and not in communion with Rome since shortly after the saint's death. The monastery that Athanasius founded is still the largest.

Though celibate--indeed every woman, every female animal and every smooth-faced creature is banned--they are not held to fasting or abstinence. They are obliged to obey an abbot, but they do not have to attend services except on major feast days. They provide their own food and are not bound to poverty, and in fact many of them keep their personal wealth.

It might perhaps sound as if they are indulgent to themselves and giving themselves too much personal freedom. But, in fact, the system confers heightened value on their virtuous acts, because they are done freely, and not out of constraint of obedience.

The idiorhythmic rule that Athanasius established was far in advance of his times--a radical departure from the customs of other monasteries. He made his monastery as little like a barracks as possible. He did, however, force his monks to read and study the Bible and one of his first concerns was to open a school next to the monastery.

Throughout his life he despised worldly honors as greatly as he despised ignorance. He had a particular contempt for gluttony, even going so far as to excommunicate those monks he found guilty of it. Since his day his monks have lived an independent existence, taking gifts from no one and providing their own simple needs themselves.

His memory is preserved not only in the rule that he established and the buildings that he erected but also in the hundreds of trees that he planted in the courtyards and on the terraces, in the imposing library he founded, and in the reliquaries of Nicephorus Phocas, whom he had served.

A Catholic one was being added to the monastery, a church in the form of a Greek cross where the "nikterinos" or night office was to be recited. Athanasius, who was supervising the work, and five of his monks were killed when the arch of a church on which they were working collapsed (Attwater, Benedictines, Delaney, Encyclopedia).

An anonymous Russian icon of Athanasius with Saints Barlaam and Joasaph is available on the web.