Petros 34's Life (the Vita Petri Atroensis) was written soon after his death by one of his disciples, the monk Sabas 1, and the same author later wrote a second more extended version (the Vita Retractata Petri Atroensis), adding accounts of miracles occurring after the death of Petros 34 (published by Laurent with the Vita Retractata; the paragraph numbers continue those of the earlier Life of Peter).

Petros 34 was born at Elaia in Asia and was the son of Kosmas 13 and Anna 3: Vita Petr. Atr. 2 (ὡρμᾶτο χώρας μὲν Ἀσίας, κώμης δὲ καλουμένης Ἐλαίας, Κοσμᾶ καὶ Ἄννης γέννημα χρηματίσας), cf. 4, 17, 18. On Elaia, south of Pergamum and near the mouth of the river Caicos, see Laurent, La Vie merveilleuse, p. 68, n. 3. The date was in late December 773; see Laurent, op. cit., p. 26, and cf. Vita Petr. Atr. 87. He had a brother, Christophoros, renamed Paulos (see Paulos 26) and a sister, name unrecorded (Anonyma 12): Vita Petr. Atr. 17, 18, 23, 25, 26, 43, 44, 59, 84. Uncle of Iakobos 4: Vita Petr. Atr. 103 (Vita Petr. Atr. Retractata, p. 157). He was the eldest child; he was baptised after forty days and given the name Theophylaktos: Vita Petr. Atr. 2, pp. 69-71. His mother Anna 3 who had dedicated him to the Church presented him to the bishop and in his twelfth year he received the tonsure from him and was enrolled among the clergy (τοῖς τῷ Θεῷ ἀφιερουμένοις δουλεύειν καταριθμεῖ): Vita Petr. Atr. 2- 3, pp. 69-73. He was apparently a handsome boy (τοῦ κάλλους τὸ ὡραῖον): Vita Petr. Atr. 4, p. 75. In his eighteenth year (in 791), following a vision of the Mother of God, he joined the monk Iakobos 3 and travelled with him to Mt Olympos, without his parents' knowledge; en route he had another vision of the Mother of God and was directed to an elderly ascetic, Paulos (Paulos 25), at a place called Krypta on a mountain in Phrygia called Dagoute; Paulos 25 became his mentor: Vita Petr. Atr. 4, pp. 73-77. For a theory that he was liable to military service at eighteen (cf. Kosmas 13) and became a monk to avoid it, see Laurent, Vita Retractata, intro., pp. 37- 38. Under Paulos 25 he became a monk and was renamed Petros (in 794, when he was twenty years old; see Laurent, op. cit., p. 27, and Vita Petr. Atr. 11, p. 97); subsequently he was sent by Paulos 25 to the patriarch, Tarasios 1, at Constantinople with a request for the patriarch to nominate a bishop to consecrate Petros 34 to the priesthood; Tarasios 1 gave him a letter to the bishop of Zygos, Basilios 13, and Petros 34 was consecrated as a priest by him: Vita Petr. Atr. 6, pp. 81-85, Vita Petr. Atr. Retractata 9-12 (pp. 86-92). For his priestly status, see also Vita Petr. Atr. 68, p. 197. He continued to live with Paulos 25 and accompanied him on a proposed pilgrimage to Jerusalem, which was not accomplished because Paulos 25 returned instead to Mt Olympos and founded a monastery at an oratory of St Zacharias there, of which Petros 34 later succeeded him as head: Vita Petr. Atr. 7-9, pp. 85-89, Vita Petr. Atr. Retractata 14 (pp. 92- 93). On the death of Paulos 25, in November or December 805, Petros 34 succeeded him as head of the monastery of St Zacharias; he thereafter adopted a much more rigorous form of ascetic life than before: Vita Petr. Atr. 11, pp. 93-97 (the date was in the fourth year of the emperor Nikephoros I (Nikephoros 8), when Petros 34 was in his thirty-second year and had been a monk for twelve years). When the persecution of iconophiles resumed in the reign of Leo V (Leo 15), Petros 34 dispersed his community into groups of twos and threes and himself travelled to Ephesos and Chonai and then to Cyprus, remaining there for ten months before returning to Mt Olympos and reassembling his monks; he was still harrassed and narrowly escaped arrest: Vita Petr. Atr. 13- 14, pp. 99-103. Taking up residence in a cave on Mt Hippos in Asia, he revisited his home village and persuaded his brother Christophoros to join him and become a monk also, renaming him Paulos (see Paulos 26): Vita Petr. Atr. 16, 17, pp. 105-109. They both visited their mother Anna 3 during her last illness and buried her with honour, after Petros 34 had granted her last wish to become a nun: Vita Petr. Atr. 18, pp. 109-111. They then returned to Mt Hippos and lived there a long while in great hardship: Vita Petr. Atr. 18, p. 111. Subsequently, but still in the reign of Leo 15, he returned to St Zacharias, but was active in Phrygia, Lydia and Bithynia; he sought places of refuge from visitors at a place on Mt Olympos in Bithynia called Dele, close to Prousa, and at a mountain near Apollonia in Lydia which acquired the name of Kalon Oros: Vita Petr. Atr. 19, 20 (Dele), 22 (Kalon Oros), 23, 25-28. He founded a nunnery in Lydia in the reign of Leo 15 (see Anonyma 11): Vita Petr. Atr. 23, 24 (p. 121). He and his brother were once arrested as iconophiles by Lamaris 2 in Asia: Vita Petr. Atr. 26, pp. 125-126. For this period, cf. also Ioannes 97. He was at Kalon Oros when Michael II (Michael 10) succeeded Leo 15 as emperor (December 820); Petros 34 was then in the forty-seventh year of his life and in his sixteenth year as head of the monastery: Vita Petr. Atr. 33, p. 137. Under Michael 10 he was accused by iconoclast bishops of sorcery and appealed against them to Theodore the Stoudite (Theodoros 15), then living in exile; Theodoros 15 rigorously enquired into his life and conduct and condemned him for the excesses of his asceticism but proclaimed him innocent of the charges and persuaded the bishops to accept him as genuine: Vita Petr. Atr. 37-38, pp. 145-149. This story is also told in the Vitae of Theodoros 15 (Theodore the Stoudite). According to them, Petros 34 was nicknamed Aboukis, because of his extreme avoidance of food; an ascetic and a monk, he lived on Mt Olympos in Bithynia, where he visited Theodoros 15 shortly after the release of the Stoudites from banishment; he had been the object of severe criticism both for the extreme asceticism of his life and for the miracles that he was alleged to perform, for which he was accused of being a sorcerer; he and Theodoros 15 discussed the situation and his accusers and Theodoros 15 advised him to moderate his asceticism: Vita B Theod. Stud. 316C-317A (esp. 316CD Πέτρος ἐκεῖνος ὁ πολὺς ἐν ἀσκήσει τε καὶ τῇ τῶν θαυμάτων διαλάμπων ἀστράψει, ὁ διὰ τὴν ὑπερβάλλουσαν αὐτοῦ ἀσιτίαν, Ἀβούκις εἰκότως ἐπονομασθείς, ἀπὸ τῆς κατὰ τὸν Ὄλυμπον ὀρείου διαγωγῆς πρὸς τὸν ὑψηλὸν τοῦτον κατεφοίτησεν ἱερομύστην), Vita C Theod. Stud. §71, p. 299 (Πέτρος ἐκεῖνος ὁ πολὺς ἐν ἀσκήσει, ὁ διὰ τῆν ἄκραν ἀσιτίαν Ἀβούκης ἐπικληθείς), Vita A Theod. Stud. 220BD (Πέτρος ὁ περιβόητος, ὁ τὴν ἀρετὴν ἀπαράμιλλος ἐκεῖνος). The date was 821, before the revolt of Thomas 7 (Thomas the Slav), when Theodoros 15 was living at Ta Kriskentiou; see Theodoros 15, with references. Petros 34 habitually slept little, spending the night reciting the psalms and various offices: Vita Petr. Atr. 39, p. 151. He visited Theodoros 15 a second time, apparently to seek advice on the reorganisation of his monasteries: Vita Petr. Atr. Retractata 59 (p. 117). The date was perhaps 823/824; cf. Laurent, Vita Retractata, p. 43, n. 1. Under the emperor Michael 10 Petros 34 founded a nunnery in Lydia, reassembled his community of St Zacharias at Mt Olympos and appointed his brother Paulos 26 as oikonomos there, founded a monastery of St Porphyrios close to the river Rhyndakos, established the monastery of Balentia consisting of monks who had gathered in the vicinity of Kalon Oros, and spent his time apparently moving from one community to another: Vita Petr. Atr. 41 (the nunnery), 43-44 (St Zacharias), 46 (St Zacharias), 47 (St Porphyrios), 49 (Balentia), 50 (Balentia and Mt Olympos), 54 (Balentia and Olympos), 55 (Olympos). He was often accompanied on these journeys by Barnabas 1, Philotheos 2 or Petros 35: Vita Petr. Atr. 47 (p. 163), 51 (p. 169), 52 (p. 171), 54 (p. 175), 57 (p. 179), 94 (Vita Petr. Atr. Retractata, p. 143). Among miracles he performed was the cure of the son of Anonyma 13 and Bardas 12: Vita Petr. Atr. 51. He also expelled demons from some ancient baths adjacent to property owned by Konstantinos 43: Vita Petr. Atr. 61, p. 185. He was in his fifty- eighth year when Michael 10 died and was succeeded as emperor by Theophilos 5 (in 829); in the fourth year of Theophilos 5 (in 832/833) the persecution of iconophiles resumed and Petros 34 again dispersed his community at St Zacharias by twos and threes: Vita Petr. Atr. 63, p. 187. He now visited the monastery of St Porphyrios, travelled to Bithynia to visit the hesychast, Iakobos 5, and then returned to St Porphyrios: Vita Petr. Atr. 64-66, pp. 189-195. Iakobos 5 accompanied him on his return to St Porphyrios and there they lived together a life of devotion and asceticism; they then went to Kalon Oros for a time but as the persecution continued returned to St Porphyrios; this was in the seventh year of the reign of Theophilos 5 and the sixty-third year of Petros 34's life (in 835/836): Vita Petr. Atr. 69 (with Iakobos 5 at St Porphyrios), 70-74 (Kalon Oros), 75 (return to St Porphyrios). Petros 34 fell gravely ill but recovered enough to visit St Ioannikios (Ioannikios 2) at Mt Olympos; from there he returned to an oratory of St Nikolaos near the monastery of Balentia: Vita Petr. Atr. 80, p. 213, Vita Petr. Atr. Retractata, pp. 128-129. Here he again fell ill and died, on 1 January 837, after naming his brother Paulos 26 to succeed him as head of the monastery: Vita Petr. Atr. 81-85, pp. 215-225, Vita Petr. Atr. Retractata, pp. 129-132. For the date, see Vita Petr. Atr. 85 and 87 (he had completed his sixty-third year, and died on Monday, 1 January, in the fifteenth indiction, in the reign of Theophilos 5, in the year of the world 6345). At the moment of Petros 34's death Ioannikios 2 had a vision, which he narrated to Sabas 1: Sabas, Vita Ioannicii 44. He was attended after his death by Barnabas 1 and Philotheos 2: Vita Petr. Atr. 89 (Vita Petr. Atr. Retractata, p. 137). For further details, including analysis of the miracles connected with Petros 34, see Laurent, La Vie merveilleuse, pp. 24-61, and Vita Retractata, pp. 49-54. Cf. also Ioannes 96 and Zenobios 1.

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