At about that time <ca. AD 494>, God sent to our father two carnal brothers from Isauria, named Theodoulus and Gelasius: men whom one could call Bezalel and Eliab, the architects of the Tabernacle, without missing the mark. With them at his call, this new Moses of our times built all that was lacking in his illustrious Laura and in the pious monasteries around it. First of all he built a bakery and a hospital in the Laura, and above he erected the great church of the highly celebrated and eternally virgin Mary, as the church built by God was too cramped for the increased community, and the Armenians had grown in number and were crowded in the small chapel. Between the two churches he made an inner court, in the same place where once he had seen the vision of the pillar of fire; he also made some large receptacles for water in the ravine. So, when the great church was built and equipped with all the necessary furnishing, the archbishop Elias, now with the saints, came down to the Laura and consecrated the church, and fixed a hallowed altar in it, on July 1 of the 9th indiction <AD 501>, in the 63rd year of great Sabas’ life. (Sabas) then transferred the Armenians from the small chapel to the church built by God, in order that they could celebrate the canonical service of the Psalmody in the Armenian dialect: he prescribed that, meeting for Mass, they should recite the reading from the Gospel and the rest of the Office by themselves in Armenian, and, at the moment of offering the divine Sacrifice, they should join the Greek-speaking (brothers) and take part in the divine mysteries (with them). But, when some of the Armenians took the initiative of reciting the ‘Trisagion’ hymn with the addition conceived by Peter, surnamed ‘the Fuller’, i.e. the (sentence) ‘who was crucified for us’, the godly Elder, justly angered, ordered that they should chant the hymn in Greek, according to the old tradition of the Catholic Church, not in the new-fangled manner of this Peter. <…> (Sabas) prescribed that on Saturday the Office should be held in the church built by God. while on Sunday it would take place in the church of the Mother of God, and a vigil should be held continuously from evening to early morning in both churches, every Sunday and holiday of the Lord.
(transl. Leah Di Segni)