Early Life and Renunciation
Elias was born about 864 in Reggio of Calabria to a wealthy noble family. At around eighteen, sources relate, he was moved by a monk's rebuke in church to abandon a frivolous manner of life. To escape an arranged marriage he fled to Taormina, and from there traveled to Rome to venerate the tombs of the Apostles.
Returning to Reggio, he sought out a spiritual father named Arsenios, who received him and tonsured him a monk. Elias became devoted to manual labor joined with prayer; a saying attributed to him holds that one who works with his hands and prays in his heart becomes doubly rich.
Monastic Foundation and Leadership
When Saracen raids threatened Calabria, Elias and Arsenios withdrew to Greece near Patras for some eight years before returning home. About 904 they established a monastic community in a cave at the Hermitage of Saint Eustratios, together with other ascetics such as the hermit Cosma and the disciple Vitalio. On the death of Arsenios around 904 — whose relics were reported to be incorrupt — Elias became abbot.
As the brotherhood grew, Elias found a larger cave and built a church dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, and neighboring caves filled with monks drawn by his example. He is remembered as one of the principal leaders of Italo-Greek monasticism under the Basilian rule, counted with Elias the Younger, Lucas of Demena, Vitalis of Castronuovo, and Nilus of Rossano.
He was entrusted with the spiritual formation of the young Fantinus of Calabria, who by tradition became a monk under Elias at about thirteen, serving at first as cook and porter before his own later renown.
Miracles and Traditional Accounts
Sources relate that during the years in Greece Elias and Arsenios performed exorcisms and worked miracles. Accounts of his abbacy include the transformation of water into wine for liturgical use and the rebuking of a destructive bear; he is said to have counseled monks, driven out demons, and attracted the poor and sick who sought healing.
By tradition Elias foretold his own death a year in advance. After a pilgrimage to a shrine of the Prophet Elias in Sicily, he withdrew to his cave, suffered silently for a reported twenty-five days, and reposed on September 11, 960, at about age 96, buried in his cave in the presence of the local bishop and many of the faithful.
Relics and Shrines
Elias's cave complex lies in the territory of Melicuccà, in the Piana di Gioia Tauro of Calabria; the settlement's name is said to derive from the Greek melikokkos (bagolaro, or hackberry, trees). The principal cave, remembered as the "divine and famous cave," is more than four meters high and some eighteen meters deep and contains a spring called the "water from the garden of Saint Elias." At its height the monastery he founded is reported to have housed over 150 monks.
On August 2, 1747, Elias's bones were discovered in the sepulcher he had carved for himself, and tradition relates the instant healing of a young man named Antonio Germanò at the sight of them. The site preserves remains of the monastery together with associated works — a cellar, mill, millstones, and a necropolis — regarded as among the most important archaeological witnesses to the Byzantine Greek period in southern Italy.
