9/22 November

The saint was born on the island of Lesbos, in the city of Mithymna (Asia Minor). In early childhood, she was left an orphan, and her relatives gave her over to a monastery for upbringing. The girl came to love the monastic life - removed from the world of sin and temptation - the long church services, the monastery obediences, the rigorous fasting and the untiring prayer. She learned many hymns, prayers and psalms by heart. In 846, when she was already eighteen years old, she set out, with the blessing of the abbess, for a neighboring village on the feast of Christ's Resurrection to visit her sister and to stay there overnight. By night, Arabs fell upon the settlement, took all the inhabitants captive, put them on a ship and in the morning put out to sea.

The brigands put the captives ashore on the desert island of Paros in order to assign a price to each one, after having examined them, and to take them away to a slave market. The Lord helped the young maiden to escape, and the Arabs did not catch up with her. From that time, St. Theoctiste lived for thirty-five years on the island (+881). An ancient church in the name of the Most Holy Theotokos served as her dwelling, and sunflower seeds as her food. She spent the whole time in prayer.

Once, a group of hunters landed on the island. One of them, pursuing a prey, went far away from the shore into the forest and suddenly saw the church. He went into the church, in order to offer up a prayer to the Lord. After the prayer, the hunter saw in a semi-dark corner, not far from the holy table, behind a thick cobweb, something like a human figure. He came up closer and heard a voice: "Stay there, O man; come no further. I am ashamed because I am a naked woman." The hunter gave the woman his outer garment, and she came out from her concealment. He saw a grey-haired woman with an emaciated face, who called herself Theoctiste. In a weak voice, she told him about her life, which was full of God's benefactions.

On completing the story, the saint asked the hunter that he bring her a particle of the Presanctified Gifts if he should ever happen to be on that island again. For the whole time of her desert sojourn, not once had she been vouchsafed to communicate of Christ's Holy Mysteries. In a year, the hunter again arrived at the island and brought a small vessel with a particle of the Holy Mysteries. Saint Theoctiste met the Holy Thing in the church, fell to the ground and prayed long with weeping. On raising herself up, she received the Body and Blood of Christ. On the following day, the hunter saw the dead body of St. Theoctiste in the middle of the church. Having dug out a shallow grave, the hunter placed the Venerable one's honorable body in it and at the same time dared to detach her hand, in order to take a part of the great God-pleaser's relics with him. The ship sailed the whole night on the restless sea, but the next morning it turned out to be at the same spot from whence it had begun its voyage. Then the man that had taken the relics understood that this was not pleasing to God. He returned to the grave and joined the hand to the Venerable one's body. After this the ship sailed away unimpeded. On the way, the hunter told his fellow-travelers about all that happened to him on the island. Having heard him out, they all decided to return immediately to Paros in order to venerate the relics of the great ascetic together, but it turned out that her holy body was not in the grave.