Saint John of the Ladder

Saint John was born at 523 in a wealthy and very religious family of Syria. He had every opportunity to be well educated, but he prefered instead of studies prayer and theological readings. At the age of sixteen, he went in Saint Catherine's Monastery in Mount Sinai. Four years after he was tonsured as a monk by his elder Fr. Martyrius. After the death of the Abbot of the Monastery, he was elected by the monks of the Monastery as the new Abbot of St. Catherine's. Few years after, he decided to go and live a solitary life, in the desert. He spent forty years there in silence, fasting, prayer and tears of repentance. While he was in solitude, the Abbot of Raithu Monastery asked him to write something spiritual to help the monks that lived in his Monastery. St. John Climacus is honored by the Church as a great ascetic and as the author of a remarkable work entitled, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, and therefore he has been named “Climacus,” or “of the Ladder.” He is commemorated on March 30 and on the fourth Sunday of Lent in the Orthodox Church.