Chariton the Confessor

Chariton the Confessor (Greek: Χαρίτων; mid-3rd century, Iconium, Asia Minor – c. 350, Judaean desert) was an early Christian monk. He is venerated as a saint by both the Western and Eastern Churches. His remembrance day is September 28.

Early life
Chariton was a native of Iconium in the Byzantine province of Lycaonia. Under the reign of Emperor Aurelian (270-275) he was tortured and came close to become a martyr during a persecution against Christians. Released from prison after Aurelian's death, he regretted not having died as a martyr.

Pharan near Jerusalem
After his release in 275, during a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and other holy places, Chariton was abducted by bandits and brought to a cave in the Pharan Valley (upper Wadi Qelt). The traditional account states that his abductors died by drinking wine that was poisoned by a snake. Chariton decided to remain a hermit in the cave after this miraculous death of his abductors. There he built a church and established a monastery, the first one of the lavra type.

Douka near Jericho
Later he moved to the Mount of Temptation near Jericho, where he established the lavra of Douka on the ruins of the Hasmonean and Herodian Dok Fortress.

Souka (Old Lavra at Tekoa)


After that he moved on to establish a third monastery in the Valley of Tekoa, named the Souka and later known as the Old Lavra, today popularly known as the Chariton Monastery. The valley is a wadi later named in Arabic after him, Wadi Khureitun.

In all three locations his fame let Christians flock to learn from him, disturbing his solitude, which was the reason for him repeatedly moving on. At Souka he eventually relocated to a cave on a cliff near the centre of the lavra, known as the "Hanging Cave of Chariton" and whose remains have been discovered by Israeli archaeologist Yizhar Hirschfeld.

Legacy
The importance of Chariton lays mainly in the fact that he established by his own example the rules for monastic life in the Judaean desert, in the context of lavra-type monasteries. These rules became the main traits of monastic rule everywhere, based on asceticism and solitude: he lived in silence, only ate certain types of food and only after sundown, performed manual work, spent the night in an alternation of sleep and psalmody, prayed at fixed hours, stayed in his cell, and controlled his thoughts.

According to tradition, he was the one to compile the "Office of the Monastic Tonsure".