St. Righteous Xenophon, Maria, and their sons Arcadius and John

Xenophon was a Christian senator of Constantinople in the early sixth century — a wealthy and pious nobleman whose household ran with the discipline of a small monastery — and his wife Maria shared his religion and his manner of life. They had two sons, Arcadius and John, whom they sent to Beirut for the legal training expected of young men of their class. The ship carrying the sons home from Beirut was wrecked in a storm; the parents, learning that their children had drowned, gave away what remained of their estate and entered separate monastic communities — Xenophon in a men's monastery and Maria in a convent.

The sons, by the synaxarion's account, had each been cast ashore alive on different parts of the coast, each presumed the other and their parents lost, and each — independently of the other and unaware that the other lived — entered monastic life under different masters. Arcadius came to Palestine; John was instructed at Sinai. They lived for many years not knowing of the others' survival.

By a series of revelations the four were eventually brought to recognition of one another at the holy places of Jerusalem. They embraced, gave thanks for the providence that had not destroyed but only scattered them, and returned to their separate communities to spend the remainder of their lives in monastic prayer. Their joint feast — Xenophon, Maria, Arcadius, and John — falls on January 26.