Chariton the confessor

Chariton the confessor

Chariton the Confessor (* in Iconia in Asia Minor; † around 350 allegedly in Laura Pharan near Jericho ) was a hermit , ascetic and saint . His feast day in the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Churches is September 28 .

Life

Various hermit communities and monasteries in southern Palestine go back to Chariton ( ancient Greek Χαρίτων Charítōn : 'the gifted'). He is considered to be the founder of monasticism in the Judean desert .

According to tradition, he was captured by robbers on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land , but a snake crawled into one of their wine bottles and poisoned the wine, causing all of the kidnappers to perish and Chariton to be set free. Thereupon he withdrew to a Laura (hermitage) around 330 , from which the Pharan Laura Monastery in Wadi Qelt near Jericho later emerged. After a few years he withdrew from the influx of his followers and founded the Duka Monastery on the Mount of Temptation near Jericho around 340 and the Sukka ("old Laura") monastery between 340 and 350 in the Wadi Chureton (Hebrew Nachal ) named after him Tekoa , "Tekoa Gorge") near Bethlehem . All three monasteries were destroyed by the Persians in 614, and the Duka monastery was repopulated as the Greek Orthodox Sarandarion Monastery since 1875/95 .

Chariton withdrew into a cave and returned to the Laura Pharan shortly before his death. His students Euthymius the Great (377-473) and Theoktistos († 467), who were in Pharan from 406 to 411, founded more Lauren in the Judean desert based on his model .

swell

• Vita Charitonis , edited by Gérard Garitte: La vie prémétaphrastique de S. Chariton. In: Bulletin de l'Institut historique Belge de Rome. Volume 21, 1940, pp. 16-46.
• Vita Charitonis in English translation: Leah Di Segni: The Life of Chariton. In: Vincent L. Wimbush (Ed.): Ascetic Behavior in Greco-Roman Antiquity. A Sourcebook ( Studies in Antiquity and Christianity ). Fortress Press, Minneapolis 1990, ISBN 0-8006-3105-6 , pp. 393-421.

literature

• Othmar Keel , Max Küchler (Hrsg.): Places and landscapes of the Bible. A handbook and study guide to the Holy Land. Volume 2: The South. Benziger, Zurich et al. 1982, ISBN 3-525-50167-6 , pp. 479-481. 551-552. 661-662.
• Boris Hogenmüller:  Chariton the confessor. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 33, Bautz, Nordhausen 2012, ISBN 978-3-88309-690-2 .