foundation · 483 · Holy Lavra of Saint Sabbas
Sabbas was a Cappadocian who came to Palestine at eighteen, was trained under Euthymius, and after years alone in a cave above the Kidron began accepting the men who came looking for him. The Great Lavra grew round that cave from 483 and has been continuously inhabited ever since — one of the longest unbroken occupations of any building in Christian use. Its importance is disproportionate to its size for a reason that has nothing to do with asceticism: the order of services worked out there, the Typikon of Saint Sabbas, was carried to Constantinople and became the basis of the liturgical order the Byzantine and Slavic churches still keep. John of Damascus wrote there in the next century. Sabbas himself was made archimandrite of all the Palestinian hermits and twice travelled to Constantinople to argue with emperors about doctrine and taxation, dying at ninety-three.
Where does the Byzantine liturgy come from?
In large part from one gorge in the Judaean desert, and it is still inhabited.