Saint John the Short, also known as John Colobus, John Kolobos, John the Little, John the Dwarf, Yoannis Pi Kolobos, was a Coptic Desert Father born in 339 at Thebes, Egypt. Born to a poor but pious family, from age 18, John lived in an underground cave he dug in the desert of Skete. He was the spiritual student of Saint Poemen and Saint Ammoes.
Noted for being short of stature, short of temper, and conceited by nature; he did not grow in height, but as his faith increased, so did his gentleness and humility. John lived on only flatbread and vegetables his entire life and ate only one meal a day. In later life he was known for absent-mindedness, his thoughts being on the spiritual life. As a test of his new humble obedience, his director Pambo ordered him to water a walking staff stuck in the sand; John obeyed and went on watering it twice a day even though the water was about 12 miles from where they lived. After three years, the piece of wood sprouted and grew into a fruitful tree. Pambo took some of this tree’s fruits and went around to all the elder monks, saying “take, eat from the fruit of obedience”. John was ordained a priest by Pope Theophilus and became abbot of the monastery he founded around the Tree of Obedience.
To escape Berber invaders around 395, he fled Skete and lived for years as a hermit on Mount Qolzum, near the current city of Suez. He was the spiritual teacher of Saint Arsenius, and died in 405 at Mount Qolzum, Egypt, of natural causes. When Saint John died, his servant, who had been in a nearby village, had a vision of him being carried to heaven by a group of angels and saints.
