Trans. Rel. Nicephorus, Patr. Constantinopole

Saints commemorated

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  Trans. Rel. Nicephorus, Patr. Constantinopole

  Nicephorus the Confessor (c. 758 – 828) was Patriarch of Constantinople from 806 to 815 and, after Tarasius, the second of the great iconodule patriarchs to lead the Church. Born of a confessing family — his father had suffered exile for the holy icons — he served as imperial secretary, took part in the Seventh Ecumenical Council as a lay commissioner, and was raised from the lay state to the patriarchal throne. When the emperor Leo V the Armenian revived iconoclasm, Nicephorus resisted to his own ruin: refusing to surrender the images, he was deposed in 815 and exiled across the Bosphorus, where for thirteen years he wrote the great refutations of the heresy — and where, with his Breviarium and chronological tables, he left works of history besides. He reposed in exile in 828. After the Triumph of Orthodoxy (843), the Empress Theodora and Patriarch Methodius brought his relics home to the capital on 13 March 846, incorrupt, and laid them among the patriarchs in the Church of the Holy Apostles. He is kept on June 2 (repose) and March 13 (the translation of his relics).

• Africanus, Pompeius and Terence

  Africanus, Pompeius (also called Publius) and Terence, with a company of fellow-Christians, were martyrs of Africa who suffered in the third century at a place called Petrium, near Carthage, in one of the persecutions that swept the Roman province. Seized for their confession of Christ and refusing to sacrifice to the idols, they endured torments and were put to death together. The Church keeps their memory on March 13; a larger company of the same African martyrs, including Terence and Africanus with many others, is commemorated again on April 10.

• Christina of Persia

  Christina (fourth century) was a martyr of Persia, a young woman who was scourged to death for confessing her faith in Christ during one of the great persecutions of the Church of Persia under the Sasanian kings. Of her life almost nothing is transmitted beyond the manner and the constancy of her death; the Church keeps her honoured memory on March 13.

• Publius of Athens

  Publius (second century) was Bishop of Athens and a hieromartyr — the shepherd of the Athenian church who was put to death for the confession of Christ, and after whose martyrdom the flock he left, scattered and dispirited, was gathered again by his successor Quadratus. His memory is preserved by the earliest historians of the Church: Dionysius of Corinth, writing about the year 170, records in a letter that the Christians of Athens had all but fallen away after "the martyrdom of Publius their leader," until Quadratus, made bishop in his place, rekindled their faith; and Eusebius hands the notice down. The later synaxaria honour him as a successor of Dionysius the Areopagite on the throne of Athens and number him among the disciples of the apostolic age. He is commemorated on March 13.

• Sabinus of Egypt

  Sabinus (†c. 287) was a martyr of Hermopolis in Egypt — a leading citizen, and by some accounts the governor of the city, who in the persecution laid aside his rank and hid himself with a company of fellow-Christians in a house outside the town. Betrayed for two pieces of gold by a beggar whom he had fed in his need, he was seized, brought before the persecutors, tortured for his confession of Christ, and at the last drowned in the waters of the Nile. His memory is a parable of the treachery repaid for kindness and the crown won through it, and the Church keeps him on March 13.

British Isles and Ireland

• St. Mochoemoc, abbot (656)
• St. Kevoca of Kyle (7th C)
• St. Gerald of Mayo, abbot (732)

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