By Fr. George Dorbarakis
Venerable Mark was industrious in all things: he devoted himself also to the study of the divine Scriptures and reached the highest degree of ascetic practice and virtue. Proof of both is, on the one hand, the discourses he composed, which are filled with every kind of teaching and benefit, and on the other hand the working of miracles that was given to him by the Savior Christ. Of these it is absolutely necessary to recount one:
When the Venerable one was in the courtyard of his hermitage and, in prayer, was keeping watch over himself, a hyena came near him, bringing with it its blind little cub. With humble bearing it therefore begged the Saint to have pity on it and to heal the blindness of its child. And he, after spitting upon the wounded eyes and praying, made them healthy.
After some days, the hyena brought him the fleece of a large ram as a gift for the healing, but the Venerable one did not wish to receive it before the beast promised that from then on it would never again attack the sheep of poor people. But if he was so beloved by irrational nature, much more did he have love toward human beings, because of our common nature, which requires that we show very great compassion toward one another.








