The life of St Daniel of Skete in Egypt
Attempting to escape that second captivity, he struck one of his captors with a stone and killed him, then fled back to Sketis. Shaken by what he had done, he sought out Timothy, Patriarch of Alexandria, to confess it, but Timothy would assign him no penance for the act. Unsatisfied, Daniel carried the question further still, seeking out the Pope of Rome and the patriarchs of Constantinople, Antioch, and Jerusalem in turn, and none of them judged him guilty of murder either. He returned at last to Alexandria and gave himself up to the civil governor, who likewise refused to have him executed. Only then did Daniel set his own penance, to take a leper into his cell and care for him until death, and, when that one died, to take in another, a discipline he kept for the rest of his life.
He went on to become igoumen of Sketis, respected across Egypt, remembered less for any single teaching than for a conscience that would not let itself be lightly absolved.
