St. Shalito (+395/6)
After the Emperor Constantine became a king, the parents of Mor Shalito became a Christians and Shalito was five years old when he baptized with his parents around 305/6.  St. Shalito becomes a monk in the monastery of St. Pachoum in Egypt. He was a humble and meek servant of the brothers. He quickly learned the scriptures both the Old and New Testaments starting with the Psalms. He excelled in fasting, singing, and humility. For five years he labored in the monastery. His first miracle occurred with a man with demon who tore his garments and physically abused himself. This man frightened the other brothers. But St. Shalito comforted the man and cast out the demon in the name of Jesus Christ (the Messiah). This miracle caused the brother monks to greatly honor St. Shalito. In return St. Shalito blessed them by telling them that the Holy Spirit Who descended on Moses and enlighten him and on the Apostles made them evangelists of the Kingdom of Heaven....let him come and comfort you and me ...... for the One Who gave the authority to crush snakes and scorpions and every power of the enemy. The one who gave them power and strength to do this he also gave to this righteous athlete to heal the sick and cast out demons.

But the fame of this miracle healing was only temporary and St. Shalito notices that the vanity of the monks was destroying all his labors. He left the monastery of St. Pachoum and went to a rival one and dwelled in the cave ten years. He lived mostly in the mountains eating plants and living the life of a hermit.

In these mountains he encountered demonic spirits. One night the chief of the devils came to him and said, “I am the Christ (Messiah) the light of the world. Because of the success of your manners I came that I might relieve you of the work of your labors.” St. Shalito made a sign of the Cross on himself and told him: " you are Anti-Christ, you are the darkness of the world, not its light" and the Satan fled from him.

This did not end the demonic attacks. Legions of devils came to him. The greatest of the attacks were spiritual and St. Shalito fought them with prayer and vigils. But his greatest battle was against the ideas of Arius of Alexandria. The saint was given an inspirational insight into the error of Arius through a vision of thorns, briars and tares. A voice came to him in a trance and said, “Know that the briars, and thorns, and tares are the impious teachings of Arius and all those heresies he has. The light destroys them which is the true faith of the catholic church. It is the Lord Jesus who makes victory for her. It will be destroyed like stubble before the fire. This is how wickedness is destroyed before the teachings of faith truly!”

After this he left his cave and returned and lived with some brothers. And there he received another sign from God about St. Augin (Eugene), he gathered the brothers and told them “Behold a sign is with us, a man who is full of the spirit who is like one of the Apostles, the blessed disciples of our Lord. That one shall be to us a leader. And we shall be to him in the figure of the Apostles All of us shall go the region of the east. We shall labor and spread the teachings of the Gospel of our Lord on earth in the hearts of men. We shall uproot the teachings of deceit and error. They have thorns and briars and tares of evil among them (the heretics)".

St. Shalito and the brothers went to the place of St. Augin where the famous saint repeated the words prophetically spoken by St. Shalito saying, “Come, we shall go uproot the evil's teachings and we shall plant the seed of the teachings of our Lord." Together they all went to Mesopotamia and the city of Nisibis under the leadership of St. Augin.

The troop went down to a river called Mesho and crossed over to a village called Bethzeldo. They remained ten days there then went up to the mountain. After three years a plague (Shar'uto) hit the city of Nisibis. Every day hundreds died. St. Augin asked St. Shalito to pray over the city because the Angel of Death would stop. St. Shalito went down to the city and prayed for it, and God heard his prayer and stopped the death from the city, and then all they those who were with disease of plaque came to him and he prayed for them to be healed of their diseases, and all were healed, one thousand two hundred and three people were healed. A woman with gangrene came to the saint and was also healed.

St. Augin and St. Shalito returned to the mountain of Izlo. St. Shalito wandered the mountain at night. Once at night he was bitten by a snake, he struck it on the head with his staff and killed it. He said to the dead snake, “O evil snake our Lord gave us power that we might crush snakes and scorpions and the power of the enemy.” The saint was not affected by the poison of the snake.

Before the time when St. Jacob of Nisibis became Bishop in Nisibis city he went with St. Shalito and St. Augin to the Qardu mountains (now is Cudi dagi in Turkey) to the place of the Ark of Noah and built and temple there. He told the saints what he wanted to do and they prayed over the matter. The next day they told St. Jacob that it is the will of God to build the temple there and they said, “It is the will of God that you build the temple for the name of his greatness and the future of our Lord shall be fulfilled by your hands like the temple of Zorabebel.” This made St. Jacob very happy. They went together to the place of the ark and enlisted the help of an angel and consecrated the temple. It was built with the help of many brothers in a place called Sariyulo.

While the three were resting at the base of the mountain near a grove of tree, they learned of a dragon that had attacked a child. The dragon was 26 cubits long and 5 cubits wide. Its mouth was two cubits. One boy came and reported the death to St. Shalito. He was grieved and the saint promised to ransom the child from the dragon. He caused the dragon to spit up the child and the dragon died. The saint then raised the child to life. There was great rejoicing over the risen child and they celebrated in the nearby village for three days. St. Shalito returned to Mount Izlo where the brothers learned of his miracle.

Once again St. Shalito left the monastery of Mt. Izlo and began a long missionary journey. He went to the mountain of Shbo near Bethzabdai (now Idil in Turkey). He crossed the Tigris River and walked on the water like Peter. On Mt. Shbo he endured a harsh winter of snow and bad weather in the narrow cave where he did not see the sun, moon, or stars for couple months. By the advise of the demon of the village Mizansaf which called after his name and was worshipped by them, they came to the cave and hit the St. Shalito almost he died and left. Th St. afterward was healed by the angel of God. God sent the angel of death and hit the village with the plaque, the leaders of the village knew that because of the St. this happened to them, so they gathered entire people and climbed the mountain and asked the St. Shalito forgiveness, and so he did forgive them and upon their request finally he went down to their village and prayed then God stopped the diseases from the village, and crush the idol of the demons and baptized the entire village.

The whole villages around that mountain heard what St. Shalito has done, they came asked him to teach them the true religious and he  evangelized all villages and baptized the people. He traveled to the village of Zadoon and there he raised the dead after which he baptized many of the inhabitants. He proceeded on to the village of Beth Maweele where the fame of St. Augin preceded him.

Departure of St. Shalito
St. Shalito knew that his end is near, he desired to visit his friend from the group of St. Augin at Beth Maweele. He crossed the Tigris River and walked on the water, in the same time a woman came to fill her jar, when she saw him walking on the water she left her jar and returned to the village, the news about the Saint was spread and entire village go out to be blessed from the Saint. The holy man when he saw the crowd is coming to him, he felt on earth with prayer to God, the crowd saw his face was filled with light they remain silent waiting the St. to finish his prayer, when he was delayed in his prayer came to ask his blessing and they found him dead. They extremely were saddened because they thought that they did not deserve his blessing, the villages around heard about his departure, they gathered and  each asked to be entombed in their village, they start to fight then they decided to put the body of the Saint on the sumpter, when they did the animal returned the saint's body to his cave. there they built a monastery after his name.

St. Shalito performed many more miracles in his life and so more after his death, he died at age 95 and nine months on September 19, aroud 395/6. A monastery was built over his bones and it was called the monastery of the Chosen St. Shalito.
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* Shalito is Aramaic word means: Authorized man, perfect, prince, a ruler, leader, taskmaster.