He was an abbot, a most saintly monk who came from Cappadocia in Asia Minor, and lived in the desert land between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. He finally took charge of all the monasteries in that territory. He was a great fighter to protect the humanity of Jesus Christ from the Monophysite heresy, which denied the human nature of Jesus, thus putting an end to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and to His Most Precious Blood. One of the monasteries built by Saint Sabbas, not too far from the Garden of Olives where Our Lord sweat blood on the night of His Passion, still remains. It is the second oldest monastery in the history of the Church. The oldest monastery is that of Saint Catherine of Alexandria on Mount Sinai. Saint Sabbas was ninety-three years old when he died. His relics were for a long time in the Church of Saint Mark in Venice, where the Crusaders brought them, but, in 1965, Pope Paul VI sent them back to Palestine, where they are enshrined in the Mar Sabbas Monastery.
See also: Saint Sabbas
Icon of “Saint Sabbas the Sanctified,” as he is known in the East (source)
