The parents of St. Macarius, the priest Abraham and his wife Sarah, were, like the great forefathers, barren until old age.
After the barbarians attacked Egypt, they moved to the outskirts of Egypt to the village of Ptinapor, near the Nitrian desert, and there their son Macarius was born. When the boy grew up, his parents married him, but the young man was soon widowed. After the death of his wife, the Monk Macarius strengthened his desire to choose a monastic path.
The Lord sent him an experienced spiritual mentor in the person of an old man who helped him set up a cell for himself and taught him how to weave mats to earn bread. After some time, local residents learned about the young hermit, who, far from the village, spent time in strict solitude and prayer, and reported him to the local bishop. He installed Macarius as a reader in the church, but the monk, striving for monastic solitude, left the village and settled in another place.
Living as a hermit, the monk was subjected to severe temptations: snakes crawled into his hut, wild animals roamed around, but Saint Macarius sang psalms, and all terrible visions were scattered. Then the enemy of the human race, seeing his powerlessness, decided to slander the saint: the daughter of one of the villagers became pregnant and, at the instigation of her lover, slandered the saint. Enraged parents and the village residents incited by them attacked the cell, dragged the monk out of there, mercilessly beat him and abandoned the half-dead. When the monk came to his senses, the girl’s parents demanded that he give them money for food. The Monk Macarius endured everything with meekness and only began to weave mats harder to earn the money he needed.
When the Monk Macarius reached the age of 40, he was ordained a hieromonk and received a great gift of healing: destroying devilish intrigues, he healed a bewitched young woman and cured a girl of leprosy with the anointing of oil. At this time, the Monk Macarius was elected rector (abba) of the monks who lived in the Skeet desert.
The Monk Macarius taught his flock with deep humility and meekness. Showing the monks the way to fight temptations, he said that forcing the devil to retreat and stopping temptations is possible not by fasting (the devil does not eat at all), not by vigil (the devil does not sleep at all), but, as the devil himself admitted to him, only by humility.
When the monk reached the age of 97, Saints Anthony the Great and Pachomius the Great appeared to him and announced his death on the 9th day after their appearance.
The Monk gathered all the brethren that day, said goodbye to everyone and went to the Lord. Many of the brethren saw with a touch from above the holy saints and the Ethereal Powers that greeted the soul of St. Macarius. The relics of Saint Macarius rest in Italy, in the city of Amalfi.