Euphrasius of Ionopolis

Saint Euphrasius, Bishop of Ionopolis

Bishop

Euphrasius is a bishop of Ionopolis commemorated by the Greek synaxaria on 17 July, of whom one sentence and one couplet survive: that he pleased God by his works, and that he reposed in peace — that is, he was not a martyr, and no persecution, council or controversy attaches to his name. His see, Ionopolis, is the Paphlagonian city formerly called Abonoteichos, a suffragan of Gangra on the Black Sea coast; nothing in the notice permits his century to be fixed.

The whole of the record

The Greek synaxarion for 17 July, after the great-martyr Marina and the martyrs Speratus and Veronica, gives the memory of Ὁ Ἅγιος Εὐφράσιος ἐπίσκοπος Ἰωνοπόλεως with the customary two-line epigram:

Having gladdened the Word by thy works, O Euphrasius, go rejoicing along the path that leads to heaven.

and the single line of narrative: "Saint Euphrasius was bishop of Ionopolis, and reposed in peace." Nothing else is transmitted. This corpus adds nothing to it, and in particular invents no persecution and no dates.

The one thing that can honestly be added is the identity of the see. Ionopolis (Ἰωνόπολις) is the coastal city of Paphlagonia earlier called Abonoteichos — renamed in the second century, at the petition, so Lucian of Samosata reports, of the oracle-monger Alexander of Abonoteichos — and it survives as the modern Turkish İnebolu, whose name is a corruption of Ionopolis. It was a bishopric of some standing, suffragan to the metropolitan of Gangra, represented at Nicaea in 325 and at Chalcedon. Euphrasius therefore belongs to the ordinary episcopate of Byzantine Asia Minor, and the phrase ἐν εἰρήνῃ τελειοῦται, "he was perfected in peace," is the synaxarion's regular formula for a bishop who died in his bed after a good ministry.

Feast and commemoration

July 17 (church date; New Calendar civil July 17, Old Calendar civil July 30). The commemoration is Greek: it stands in the Greek synaxaria and in OrthodoxWiki's list for the day, and is absent from the Slavonic menologia and from the OCA's list. It carries no proper service; where it is sung, the common of a holy hierarch is used.

Hymns

Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a hierarch)

The truth of things hath revealed thee to thy flock as a rule of faith, an image of meekness and a teacher of temperance. Therefore thou hast obtained the heights by humility, and riches by poverty. O father and hierarch Euphrasius, intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Original translation from the Greek

Iconography

No individual type is attested. He would be painted by the ordinary hierarch type: an elder in phelonion and crossed omophorion, blessing with the right hand and holding the jewelled Gospel in the left, with the inscription of his name and see. No pre-1900 image of him has been located for this collection. The Menologion of Basil II, the usual first resort for minor saints of the fixed year, cannot help, since it covers only September to February.

Disputed questions

His century is unknown. No source consulted assigns him a date, and none should be guessed. He is indexed here under the unknown century.
The form of the see-name. English lists give Ionopolis, Ionoupolis and Ionopolis in Paphlagonia; OrthodoxWiki has "Euphrasius of Iconopolis," which is a slip for Ionopolis and should not be read as Iconium.
Not to be confused with the several other Euphrasii of the calendar, nor with Euphrasia of Nicomedia, the virgin-martyr.