Blessed Isidore the Fool for Christ.

Commemorated May 14 in the Orthodox Christian Menaion

From the Prologue

He was of German birth. Going to Rostov from an attraction to the Orthodox faith, he not only became a member of the Orthodox Church but took on himself the strict asceticism of folly for Christ. He lived in rags, spending the day pretending madness and, through this madness, teaching men, and spending the nights in prayer. He spent these nights in a hut outside the town, built in a lonely swamp. Great and mighty wonders were performed by this saint, both during his lifetime and after his death. He appeared to a merchant who had been thrown out of his ship and was drowning. Isidore came to him through the water and led him to the shore. He caused the wine in all the containers to dry up one day , when the servants had driven him from the door of the Prince of Rostov without giving him a single cup of water. When he died in his hut on May 24th, 1484, the whole of Rostov was aware of a fragrant odour. The merchant who had been saved from the sea built a church in the place where the hut had stood.

From The Prologue From Ochrid by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich
©1985 Lazarica Press, Birmingham UK