The author of the famous Ladder. He came from somewhere to Mount Sinai as a sixteen-year-old boy and stayed there, first as a novice, then as a hermit and finally as the abbot of Sinai until he was eighty, when he died around 563. His biographer, the monk Daniel, says of him: “He ascended in body to Mount Sinai and in spirit to the Heavenly Mountain”. He spent nineteen years in obedience with his spiritual father, Martyrius. Anastasius of Sinai, once seeing the young John, prophesied about him that he would be the abbot of Sinai. After the death of his spiritual father, John withdrew to a cave where he lived in difficult asceticism for twenty years. His disciple Moses fell asleep one day in the shade of a large rock. John, while praying in his cell, saw that his disciple was in danger, and began to pray to God for him. When Moses later arrived, he fell to his knees and thanked his spiritual father for saving him from certain death. He told how in a dream he heard John calling him, so he jumped, and at that moment the rock fell. If he had not jumped, the rock would have killed him. At the urging of the brethren, John accepted the position of abbot, and directed the salvation of human souls with zeal and love. Once he heard some people reproach him for being too talkative. Without becoming angry at all, John fell silent and did not speak a word for a whole year, until the brothers begged him to speak and continue teaching them with his God-given wisdom. Once, six hundred pilgrims came to the Sinai monastery. At the table, everyone saw a nimble young man in Jewish clothing, who served and commanded and ordered other servants. Suddenly, that young man disappeared. And when everyone looked around and asked, John said: do not look for him, the prophet Moses served in his place. During his silence in the cave, John wrote many useful books, the most famous of which is the Ladder, which is still widely read today, in which the method of ascending the soul to God is described as along a ladder. Before his death, John appointed his brother by the flesh, George, as abbot. But he grieved greatly over parting with John. Then John told him that if he were to be worthy of the closeness of God in the other world, he would pray that he, George, would also be taken to heaven that same year. And so it happened. After ten months, George also fell asleep and settled among the citizens of heaven, like his elder brother John.

Saint Evula. Holy Prophet Joada (Joel). Holy Hieromartyr Zechariah, Bishop of Corinth. Easter Lent.