Bruno, Abbot and Founder of the Charterhouse Monks

Although not technically an Orthodox saint, I am still a great admirer of Abbot Bruno.

Bruno, the founder of the Charterhouse Monks, was born at Cologne, about the year 1030. His parents, who were eminent in rank and goodness, sent him to the Cathedral school at Rheims, which at that time, under the direction of Herimanus, was one of the best schools in Europe. There he did so well in philosophy and theology that he took the degree of Doctor in both of those subjects. And for his extraordinary graces, when he was only about the age of twenty-seven, he succeeded Herimanus as rector of the school. But at the height of his success, a few years lather, he and six comrades, all learned men, forsook the world and betook themselves to Saint Hugh, Bishop of Grenoble. The latter, when he learned the reason of their coming, and believing them to have been figured by seven stars which one night in a dream he had seen falling at his feet, gave them a grant of land in some very wild mountains in his diocese, which are called the Chartreuses, and where was established by them the first Charterhouse monastery. * Thither Bruno and his companions withdrew themselves, in the 1084, and led for some years the life of hermits. But in 1089 Pope Urban II, who had formerly been his disciple at Rheims, commanded him to come to Rome. And there because of the afflictions which then scourged the Church, the Pope held him much against his will for some time as his counsellor. But at last Bruno, who had refused the Archbishoprick of Reggio, got leave to retire to a solitary place in Calabria, which was within easier reach of the Pope than the aforesaid Charterhouse. In this place, owing to a grant of land from his friend Roger Sovereign Earl of Sicily and Calabria, who had begun to cherish him and his comrades, he founded another Charterhouse named for Saint Stephen. And so the life he instituted began to spread. Which same is the eremitical life lived in community, under a most strict Rule. And this Carthusian Order is the only one in the Church which hath never had any reform, for it hath never stood in need of any. From Saint Bruno it learnt quietude and patience through silence and prayer, but withal a holy gaiety. At length Bruno, full of graces and good works, and famous for godliness and gaiety, not less than for learning, fell asleep in the Lord, on October 6^th, in the year 1101, and was buried in the said Monastery of Saint Stephen.