The PriestMartyr Pankratios, Bishop of Tauromeneia
Commemorated on July 9
The PriestMartyr
Pankratios, Bishop of Tauromeneia, was born at a time, when our Lord Jesus
Christ yet lived upon the earth.
The parents of
Pankratios were natives of Antioch. Hearing about the good-news of Jesus
Christ, the father of Pankratios took his young son with him and set off to
Jerusalem, in order to see for himself personally the great Teacher. The
miracles astonished him, and when he heard the Divine teaching, he then
believed in Christ as the Son of God. He became close with the disciples of the
Lord, especially with the holy Apostle Peter. And it was during this period
that young Pankratios got to know the holy Apostle Peter.
After the Ascension
of the Saviour one of the Apostles came to Antioch and baptised the parents of
Pankratios together with all their household. When the parents of Pankratios
died, he left behind his inherited possessions and went to a Pontine mountain
and began to live in a cave, passing his days in prayer and deep spiritual
contemplation. The holy Apostle Peter, one time passing through these parts,
made a visit to Pankratios at Pontus, and took him along to Antioch, and then
to Cilicia, where the holy Apostle Paul then was. And there the holy Apostles
Peter and Paul ordained Saint Pankratios as bishop of the Cilician city of
Tauromeneia.
Saint Pankratios
toiled zealously for the Christian enlightenment of the people. Over the course
of a single month he built a church, where he celebrated Divine-services. The
number of believers quickly grew, and soon almost all the people of Tauromeneia
and the surrounding cities accepted the Christian faith.
Saint Pankratios
governed his flock peacefully for many years. But one time pagans connived
against the saint, and seizing an appropriate moment, they fell upon him and
stoned him. Thus did Saint Pankratios end his life as a martyr (I). The relics
of the saint rest in the church named for him, at Rome.
© 1996-2001 by translator Fr. S. Janos.
