Euschemon of Lampsacus
Our Father among the Saints Euschemon the Confessor, Bishop of Lampsacus
Confessor · Bishop · d. 9th century, in exile
Commemorated 14 March — Confession and repose in banishment
Euschemon (ninth century) was bishop of Lampsacus on the Hellespont and a confessor of the holy icons in the second iconoclast persecution. Formed from his youth in a virtuous and ascetic life, and honoured in his own day as a wonderworker, he was raised to the see of Lampsacus and, when the emperor Theophilus (829–842) renewed the war on the images, stood firm in their veneration; for this he was seized, ill-treated, and driven into banishment, in which he ended his life, a confessor who suffered for the faith without dying by the sword. He is kept on March 14.
The record of Euschemon is brief, preserved in the synaxarion-notice of his day. He is said to have devoted himself from his youth to a virtuous and ascetic life, and to have been granted, even before his episcopate, the gift of wonderworking, so that his holiness was known before he was called to office. He was consecrated bishop of Lampsacus — the ancient city on the Asian shore of the Hellespont (the strait of the Dardanelles), a see of the metropolis of Cyzicus — and shepherded his church in the troubled decades of the second iconoclasm.
When the emperor Theophilus, last and most zealous of the iconoclast rulers, pressed the persecution of the holy icons and their defenders throughout his reign (829–842), Euschemon refused to abandon the veneration of the images and the Orthodox confession, in company with the great confessors of that age. For his steadfastness he was deposed, maltreated, and sent into exile, and there, in his banishment, he reposed — a confessor of the faith, one who endured imprisonment and exile for Christ but was not put to death. His memory was kept after the Triumph of Orthodoxy (843) among the confessors who had suffered for the icons.
Feast and commemoration
Euschemon is commemorated on March 14 (church date; Old Calendar civil March 27) in the Byzantine synaxaria. March 14 commonly falls within Great Lent; on a Lenten weekday the full Liturgy is not served, so no fixed Epistle and Gospel are appointed and the readings follow the Lenten cycle. He is not to be confused with Parthenius of Lampsacus, the wonderworking bishop of the same see of the fourth century (kept February 7): the two are distinct hierarchs of Lampsacus, separated by some five hundred years — Parthenius a wonderworker of the age of Constantine, Euschemon a confessor of the iconoclast persecution.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4
O God of our fathers, who dealest ever with us according to thy gentleness, take not thy mercy from us, but by the prayers of thy holy hierarch and confessor Euschemon guide our life in peace.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Euschemon is depicted in the manner of a confessor-hierarch: an aged bishop in the phelonion or sakkos with the omophorion, holding or blessing over the Gospel-book, and — as a defender of the images — often shown holding or venerating an icon, the mark of the confessors of the iconoclast age. No identity-verified public-domain image particular to this saint has been secured; the entry carries no stored icon.