Early Life and Family
He was born around 823 or 824 with the baptismal name Niketas, in Galatia in Asia Minor; sources place his birthplace at Opso or at Ancyra. According to his life, his parents were named Epiphanius and Anna.
He was left fatherless at the age of seven and became the chief support of his mother. He entered military service and, at his mother's insistence, married and fathered a daughter. He later left his household secretly to enter the monastic life. By tradition, his mother and wife eventually received the monastic tonsure at one of the monasteries he founded.
Monastic Life
Around 848 he was living at Mount Olympus in Bithynia, where, according to his life, he spent some fifteen years in ascetic practice. He afterward moved to Mount Athos, where he was tonsured into the Great Schema and lived as a hermit, including a period in a cave in silence.
He later took up the life of a stylite near Thessalonica, where he gave spiritual counsel and, according to his life, performed healings.
Foundation at Peristerai
He established a monastic foundation at Peristerai (Peristeros) on Mount Chortiatis, near Thessalonica. According to the synaxarion he founded the community in 863 and guided it for fourteen years, holding the rank of deacon; his life describes it as a double monastery for both monks and nuns.
Toward the end of his life he withdrew to the island of Hiera, associated with Mount Athos, where he reposed on October 14 or 15, 898. His relics were afterward translated to Thessalonica.
Sources and Legacy
His life was composed by his disciple Basil (the hagiography catalogued as BHG 655), written in high-register Byzantine Greek. The text cites earlier Christian writers including Gregory of Nazianzus, Cyril of Alexandria, John of the Ladder, Theodore of Stoudios, and pseudo-Eustathios of Thessalonica.
He is also known as Euthymius (Euthymios) the Younger or Euthymius of Thessalonica.
