(5) <John arrives at the Great Laura, 491.> … The blessed Sabas received him and entrusted him to the steward of the Laura, to be ordered about and put to service as one of the beginners, since (Sabas) was unaware of the treasure he had in him (being a bishop). And the divine John practised full obedience to the steward and to the other fathers, serving with complete submission and zeal, carrying up water from the ravine, cooking for the masons and helping them with the stones and with all the other services pertaining to the building, since at the time the hostel of the Laura was being erected.
(6) When the time arrived for the rotation of offices, in the first indiction <1 Sept. 492>, the newly appointed steward (of the Great Laura) appointed the great luminary (John the Hesychast) keeper of the hostel and cook. He took up this duty with zeal and joy, and would look after all the fathers with his services and attend each with great humility and docility. During the time when he performed this office, the construction of the monastery which lies outside the laura to the north happened to be under way: (this monastery) serves the purpose of (housing) the laymen who renounce the life of the world in order to teach them the monastic discipline first, before they are admitted to the Laura, after they have learned the cenobitic rule to perfection. For the blessed Sabas maintained that, as the flower precedes the growth of the fruit, so the cenobitic life must precede the solitary life. Now, when this coenobium was being built, the righteous man (John), as hostel keeper, aside from all the other duties of the hostel, had to cook for the workmen, and then, loading himself with the cooked food and the other supplies, to bear that burden (over his shoulders) and bring it to the labourers, who were (at work) at a distance of about ten stadia from the hostel.
(7) When the year of this service came to an end - all the fathers having been edified by John’s quiet manner, his austerity and his spiritual comprehension - our father Sabas gave him a cell where he might live in seclusion. So the venerable John, having received this cell, committed himself to a hermit life: for three years he spent five days a week absolutely without letting himself be seen by anybody and without eating anything; on Saturday and Sunday he would be the first to come into the church and the last to leave it, standing with gravity and awe and absolute piety during the office of the Psalmody … At the end of these three years he was appointed steward of the Laura, and God helped him in everything: the Laura was blessed and the community increased during his term of office.
(transl. Leah Di Segni)