Dorotheus of Gaza was a sixth-century monk and abbot of the Holy Land, remembered above all for his Soul-Profiting Instructions, a set of discourses on the ascetic life that have remained among the most widely read works of Orthodox spiritual counsel. By tradition he was born around the year 500 at Antioch in Syria into a prosperous Christian family, and received a thorough classical education that included rhetoric and medicine; some accounts describe him as trained for the work of a physician.
Drawn to the monastic life, Dorotheus first corresponded with the renowned recluses Barsanuphius the Great and John the Prophet, and through their influence entered the monastery of Abba Seridus near Gaza. The sources relate that he served a long obedience as the cell-attendant of John the Prophet and was guided by the counsel of both elders, whose written answers to his questions were later preserved. He also listened to other ascetics of his time, among them Abba Zosima.
Within the community Dorotheus passed through a succession of obediences — receiving and greeting pilgrims, overseeing the guest-house, and finally directing an infirmary where he cared for travelers and the sick. After the death of John the Prophet and the withdrawal of Barsanuphius into silence, Dorotheus left the monastery of Abba Seridus and founded his own monastery, which he guided as abbot until his death, traditionally placed between about 560 and 580.
His Instructions, addressed to the monks of his own community, treat humility, the cutting off of one's own will, the building up of the soul, and the avoidance of judging others, in a gentle and practical voice that has commended them to monastics and laity alike across the centuries. Originally composed in Greek, they were translated into Syriac, Arabic, Georgian, and Church Slavonic, and remain a standard text of Lenten and monastic reading in the Orthodox world. He is commemorated on June 5 and August 13; the database notes that he is to be distinguished from the Hieromartyr Dorotheus of Tyre, commemorated on the same June day.
