We often hear of so many of the saints, as we actually did in the previous couple of weeks where we talked about Kassiani the Nun, that were beautiful, educated, highly regarded, you name it. But there’s also many of the saints that were perhaps not so well regarded. On September 11, we celebrate one of them. His icon is perhaps present in more kitchens in the world than anyone else’s, yet we seem to know very little about him. His name to us is Euphrosynos the Cook.

Euphrosynos was a very, very uneducated man, quite rustic, a very common man. He found his way eventually into a monastery where many of the brethren didn’t think too much of him. Conversation with him perhaps was just not that enlightening. It was obvious that he didn’t know a lot. So he was assigned to kitchen and garden duties. That’s where he spent most of his time. But even with that, the Lord, who chose fishermen, after all, and made them most wise, was also able to glorify Euphrosynos in his own way.

There was a priest in that monastery, a very devout and pious priest, who was always seeking the good things of God, and one night before the matins service began, he fell asleep in his cell and was trying to contemplate the good things of God. In fact, he was asking the Lord to show him the things that would await those who attained righteousness in the kingdom of heaven. So he fell into an ecstasy, and when he did this he beheld a beautiful, just gorgeous, radiant garden, someplace very, very pleasant, very peaceful, a wonderful place to be. And in it he saw the cook! So he asked the cook, “What are you doing here? What are you doing in this garden?”

Euphrosynos answered him, “I am here beholding the good things of God, because the Lord has allowed me to be here.” The priest continued to question him about various aspects of life there, and Euphrosynos answered him as best he could, always referring back to the glorious things that God has given and the wonderful things that await all of us who get to the kingdom of heaven.

The priest finally, upon hearing all of this, heard the semantron that was being struck for matins, and he awoke suddenly. Then he realized that, in his dream, Euphrosynos had given him a gift; he had given him some apples from the garden. The priest was very grateful for this, and he was thinking about this as he woke up, but then as he stood up, what did he notice, but sitting in the folds of his cassock were the very apples that he had dreamt about, and they smelled just wonderful, an intoxicating smell. So he got up and he went to the matins service, and he beheld Euphrosynos there.

After the service was ended, he grabbed him and said, “What is going on here? Tell me what is happening. Did I not just behold you in a dream? Where were you?” And he said, “Well, I’ve been nowhere until I came for matins just like you.” The priest wouldn’t give up. He kept asking him again and again, “Tell me more. There’s something different going on here.” And finally Euphrosynos, out of humility, admitted that he indeed was the one that had appeared to the priest in the dream, and the priest said, “You gave me a gift. What was it?” And St. Euphrosynos said, “The apples that you discovered in your cassock which are back in your cell.”

The priest, upon hearing this, told all the members of the monastery about what had happened, and they all came to admire and respect the holy cook, yet the holy cook could not endure such praise after living a life that had been spent, well, definitely in the shadows. So he left the monastery that night, after all the talking had been done and all of the accolades had been heaped on him, and he was never seen again. We do not know the date of his repose or where he went to, but we do know one thing: that these wonderful apples that he had given to the priest in the dream and which became a reality healed many and cured many, of diseases and illnesses, who were able to partake of them afterward.

St. Euphrosynos is an example to all of us who find ourselves engaged in many what we would call perhaps mundane or usual activities, the activities of providing for a family, of keeping a home clean, all of these sorts of things that we tend to think of as not very exalted, certainly not very religiously oriented. But we could not be more wrong, for as he has shown us, even these seemingly lowly and insignificant things all have great worth in the eyes of God when they are done with an eye towards the Lord who created all. Next time we go into a kitchen, let’s certainly keep that in mind.