Emilian of Rome
Our Venerable Father Emilian of Rome
Venerable
Commemorated 7 March — Commemoration of the repentant monk
Emilian of Rome — a Roman by birth, called Victorinus in the world — is remembered as a striking icon of repentance in old age. Having lived, the tradition says, a long and sinful life into his later years, he was seized at last by godly sorrow, renounced the world, and entered a monastery, where he took the name Emilian and gave himself to such humble obedience and strict fasting that he became the wonder of the brethren. When the abbot once found him praying in a cave, bathed in a heavenly light, a voice from on high was heard to declare his sins forgiven — a sign, made public for the encouragement of all, of God's mercy toward the repentant sinner. He ended his days in spiritual joy and reposed in peace. He is commemorated on March 7.
From Victorinus the sinner to Emilian the monk
The saint was a Roman, born (the notices say) to the name Victorinus, who "until he was an old man led a sinful life." His story is not one of lifelong virtue but of late and complete conversion: in advanced age, stricken with contrition for the wasted years, he turned wholly to God, left the world, and was received into a monastery, taking in the tonsure the new name Emilian — a new name for a new life. What his fellow-monks then saw astonished them: the old sinner outdid the young in uncomplaining obedience and strict fasting, bearing every labour without a murmur, as one who knew how much had been forgiven him and loved much in return (cf. Luke 7:47).
The light in the cave, and the voice from heaven
The tradition preserves a single luminous incident that gives the saint his meaning. The abbot (igumen), keeping watch one night, saw Emilian slip out of the monastery and followed him to a nearby cave, where he found the old monk on his knees, praying with tears of contrition and illumined by an unearthly light; and a voice from heaven was heard, saying: "Emilian, thy sins are forgiven thee." Rather than let so great a mercy remain hidden, the abbot bade Emilian recount the vision to the whole brotherhood, that all might see with what tenderness God receives the sinner who repents, and might not despair of their own salvation whatever their past. The demons who assault such penitents with the memory of old sins, seeking to drive them to despair, found in Emilian no foothold: assured of the divine forgiveness, he pressed on unshaken.
Repose
Having received in this life the pledge of the pardon of his sins, Emilian spent the remainder of his days in spiritual joy and departed to the Lord in peace. No firm date is transmitted for his life; he is one of the synaxarion's undated ascetics, remembered not for the years of his labour but for the completeness of his turning to God.
Feast and commemoration
Emilian is commemorated on March 7 (church date; Old Calendar civil March 20), together with the Hieromartyrs of Cherson, Paul the Simple, and Paul the Confessor of Plousias. The day frequently falls within Great Lent, and his memory — a paradigm of repentance — is fittingly kept in the season of the Fast. No proper service is appointed; the common of a venerable monk is used.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 8 (from the common of a venerable)
With the streams of thy tears thou didst make the barren desert bloom, and with sighs from the depths thou didst bring forth fruit a hundredfold in thy labours; and thou becamest a beacon to the whole world, shining with wonders. O Emilian our venerable father, intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Emilian is depicted as an aged monk in the monastic schema, white-bearded, at prayer — often kneeling within a cave and illumined by a ray of divine light descending from above, the visual form of the night the abbot found him and the voice of pardon was heard. No storable public-domain image identified with certainty as this Emilian was found at the time of writing; the entry notes a wanted icon.
Disputed questions
- Not to be confused with Emilian of Cyzicus, the ninth-century confessor and bishop who suffered for the holy icons (kept August 8 and January 8): a wholly different saint, a hierarch and confessor, not a penitent monk. The two share only the name.
- Not to be confused, likewise, with Emilian of Dorostolum (July 18), the young man of the Danubian city burned to death in 362 for overturning the altars of a pagan temple under Julian the Apostate.
- The name "of Italy" or "of Rome." The Greek and Slavic notices style him variously "the Roman" (ὁ Ῥωμαῖος) and "of Italy"; both point to the same western monk, and the entry keeps the fuller Latin-Roman origin the sources give.
- Companions. Some Greek menaia append to the March 7 notice the names of companions (James and Marianus); the received life of Victorinus–Emilian, and the OCA and Slavic notices, treat him as the repentant Roman monk without a martyric company, and the entry follows this.