Our Venerable Fathers Barnabas and Sophronius of Mount Mela near Trebizond
Life
Saints Barnabas and Sophronius were Athenian ascetics, an uncle and his nephew, who settled on Mount Mela (Melas) near Trebizond in the Pontic region of Asia Minor. By tradition they are remembered as the founders of the monastery of Our Lady of Soumela, one of the most celebrated monastic houses of the Pontus. They are said to have reposed together in the year 412, and the Orthodox Church commemorates them jointly on August 18.
Accounts of their lives draw heavily on monastic tradition, and the synaxarion preserves their memory chiefly through their association with the foundation they left behind. The historical record is thin on biographical particulars, but their veneration as the spiritual fathers of Soumela has endured alongside the monastery itself.
Timeline 3 moments
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4th centuryOrigins in AthensBy tradition both saints were born and raised in Athens during the fourth century. They were relatives, an uncle and nephew; later accounts give Barnabas the secular name Basil and his nephew the name Soterichus.
c. 386Foundation on Mount MelaTradition relates that, guided by a vision, the two travelled toward Trebizond and settled on the inhospitable flank of Mount Melas, where they are credited with founding the monastery of Our Lady of Soumela. The date around 386 falls within the reign of the emperor Theodosius I.
412ReposeTradition holds that the uncle and nephew died on the same day in the year 412. They are commemorated together on August 18.
Contributions & Legacy
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The Monastery of Soumela
The house the two saints are said to have founded, the monastery of Our Lady of Soumela, stands high in the Pontic Mountains above the Altindere valley in what is now the Macka district of Trabzon Province. One explanation of its name derives it from the Pontic Greek for "on Melas," after the dark rock of the mountain on which it was built.
The monastery is traditionally associated with an icon of the Theotokos, ascribed by tradition to the Evangelist Luke, which the founders are said to have carried with them. Over the centuries the foundation passed through cycles of decline and restoration: it was reportedly restored in the sixth century under the emperor Justinian and reached its architectural height under the Empire of Trebizond, especially in the fourteenth century.
