The life of the Reverend Father of our Visarion
The memory of June 6th, the great Visarion of our fathers was born and brought up in Egypt; from his youth he loved God, and the light of God's grace shone in his heart.
St. Visarion made a pilgrimage to the holy places in Jerusalem; here he saw St. Gerasimus I, who lived a fasting and desert life by the Jordan River, served by a lion. He also saw many other pilgrims who lived there in different places, who later shone with their virtues; conversing with them, St. Visarion received many benefits for his soul.
Returning to his homeland, Visarion acquired a spiritual father in the person of Isidore Pelusiotsky 2; coming to him often, he learned virtues and was encouraged to live a strict life; finally, having distributed all his property to the poor and monasteries left behind by his parents, Visarion renounced the world and accepted the cutting into paganism.
When he retired to a deserted place, he took a vow of silence; exhausting himself with numerous labors and killing his flesh with fasting exploits, he became like a corpse in the flesh.
And Moses stood in the midst of the thicket, and lifted up his hands and his eyes to the heavens, and turned his heart thereon, and prayed therein forty days and forty nights, and did not move, neither did he eat, nor did he speak, nor did he sleep, nor did he faint from physical weakness, nor did he think of any earthly thing, but his eyes were fixed upon God, as the eyes of a man without flesh.
For this reason, he received great grace from God, and he was given the gift of miracles, so that he was like the holy prophets of old.
Thus he was like Moses 3: just as Moses once turned bitter water into tasty water in the desert with a tree pointed out to him by God, in order to give drink to the thirsty Israelites (Ex. 17:6), so St. Vissarion, by prayer and the sign of the cross, delighted the bitterness of the sea water, in order to give drink to his thirsty disciple, namely: when the saint and his disciple walked along the desert sea shore, the disciple became weary from the intense heat and, feeling that he was thirsty,
He said to the saint:
"Father, I'm very thirsty". The monk prayed and gave the sign of the cross to the sea and said, "In the name of the Lord, take a drink". The disciple drew water from the sea into a small vessel he was carrying. When he tasted the water, the disciple found it very tasty.
"Why don't you fill the jar with water? " The disciple replied", I'm sorry, sir. I'm going to draw water from the well so I won't get thirsty again".
Vissarion and Joshua 5 were pleased: as when he overcame the Amorites 6 and held the sun in motion (Isa. 10:12-13), so did this pleaser, namely: when he was walking with his disciple to an elder, the sun was inclined to the west, and the way was still far; then the elder turned to God, praying thus: "Please, Lord, command the sun to stand still until I come to your servant.
And it came to pass that the sun did not set until the saint came to the old man, and he was like to St. Vissarion and to Elijah the prophet of God.
And Elisha the prophet was like unto a holy man: as he that divided the waters with the mantle of Elijah crossed the Jordan (4 Kings 2:14-15), so he that by his prayer turned the waters into a dry way, and walked upon the waters: he crossed the great river Nile as on dry ground, and wherever the rivers met him in his way, he crossed them as on dry ground.
Then a man who was possessed by a demon was brought into the temple area, and the people prayed for the demon to come out of him.
"No one can cast out this demon except Father Vissarion, but if we ask him to do so, he will not come to the temple; so we will do this: the next morning he will come to the temple first, but we will come before him and sit the demon in his place; then we will say to the old man, 'Awake the sleeping one.'
When the priest entered the temple, he saw a man sitting on his seat, and he did not want to drive him out. As the church rule was being read, the clergy said to the old man, "Father, wake up the sleeping one". The bishop went to the man and pushed him, saying, "Get up and go from here".
Immediately the demon came out of the man, and the man stood up and gave thanks to God. And the man was healed at once.
It happened that a brother in the Scythians had fallen into some sin, for which reason the priest ordered him to leave the temple, as being unworthy to be in communion with his brother; St. Vissarion, standing up, went out with the sinner, saying: "I too have sinned".
His disciples report that for forty years he did not lie on his bed to rest; he allowed himself to sleep only for a short time, and he fell asleep either standing or sitting.
And if he live peaceably, and have no temptation, let him be more vigilant, and humble himself before God, lest he be lifted up in pride, and fall into any greater sin; for in pride many have contended with the devil.
The life of this holy father was like the life of a bird of the air, for he never acquired anything earthly, had no cage of his own, no shelter of any kind; he wandered in the wilderness, going from place to place; he walked through the mountains and forests like a lost traveler; he took no care of his bodily needs; he took no care of food or clothing; his body was covered with the poorest clothing, which barely covered his nakedness.
Though he was scorched by the heat of the sun by day, and by the cold of the night, he seldom went up to the roof; he wandered in the mountains like a bird, seeking solitude, lifting his mind to God alone and fixing his thoughts on Him alone.
And when he had grown old, he was clothed with everlasting life, 9 and went from weeping to joy with all the saints in our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever. Amen.
I 'm going to have to get back to you .