Lampadus of Irenopolis

Our Venerable Father Lampadus the Wonderworker, the Hermit of Irenopolis in Isauria

Venerable · Wonderworker · d. 10th century

Commemorated 5 July — Repose in his hermitage at Irenopolis

Lampadus was a hermit of Irenopolis in Isauria, in the mountainous interior of southern Asia Minor, who is placed by the synaxaria in the tenth century. The record of him is short and entirely moral rather than narrative: he is remembered for a life of Christian virtue lived first in the world — self-control of the tongue, forbearance, gentleness, and a great love for the poor and the suffering — and then, in the desert, for a gift of spiritual direction so exact that those who sought him out went away healed in conscience. He worked miracles in his lifetime and, the synaxarion adds, after his repose; the Greek calendars call him simply Ὅσιος Λαμπαδὸς ὁ θαυματουργός, "the venerable Lampadus the Wonderworker."

What is transmitted

Nothing survives of Lampadus but a synaxarion notice, and the notice is a portrait of character rather than a biography. It names no parents, no monastery, no emperor, no persecution. It says that while he was still living in the world he was distinguished by the Christian virtues — wisdom; an exceeding goodness; command of his tongue; patience under injury; forbearance; gentleness; and a great compassion for the poor and the afflicted — and that these were not the fruit of the desert in him but the reason he was fit for it.

He withdrew afterwards to the ascetic life at Irenopolis in Isauria, one of the several cities of that name in the Cilician-Isaurian uplands. There he became one of those solitaries whose reputation makes them useful precisely to the world they have left: the notice says that many came to his hermitage, and that he found for each the fitting remedy — the synaxarion's own image is of a physician's balsam applied to a wound — so that they recovered their moral health and went home whole. That is the whole of his recorded work, and it is the classical description of the ministry of the discerning elder.

To this the synaxaria add that he was granted the working of miracles, both during his life and after his repose, whence his epithet the Wonderworker; the miracles themselves are not described. He is placed in the tenth century, and is presumed to have died in peace in his hermitage.

Feast and commemoration

July 5 (church date; Old Calendar civil July 18), on which the Greek synaxaria name him second, after Athanasius of Athos, and the Slavonic calendars keep him as "the venerable Lampad of Irenopolis, tenth century." He has no proper office; where he is commemorated liturgically the common of a venerable father is sung, and in most usage he is simply named in the synaxarion notice of the day.

Hymns

Apolytikion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable father)

By a flood of tears thou didst make the barren desert fruitful, and by thy sighing from the depths thou didst bring forth increase a hundredfold from thy labours; and thou wast a luminary for the whole world, shining with miracles, O Lampadus our Father. Intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Iconography

There is no developed iconography of Lampadus. Where he is painted he takes the standard type of the desert-dwelling elder: an aged monk in the tunic, mantle and analavos, with a long white beard, bare-headed, the right hand raised in blessing or in the gesture of speech and the left holding an unrolled scroll — appropriate to a saint remembered almost solely as a counsellor of souls. No pre-1900 image of him has been identified for this collection; his name does not appear in the illustrated menologia, which in any case cover the winter half of the year.

Disputed questions

Venerable or hieromartyr? The Greek synaxaria and the Prologue tradition are unanimous that Lampadus was Ὅσιος — a venerable ascetic who reposed in peace — and no martyrdom is anywhere narrated of him. The Orthodox Church in America's calendar, however, heads its July 5 entry "Hieromartyr Lampados of Irenopolis" while printing underneath it the ordinary ascetic notice, with no martyrdom in the text. The heading is best treated as a cataloguing slip; this entry follows the Greek usage and classes him as venerable, and notes the divergence rather than resolving it silently.
Which Irenopolis? Several towns of the Roman East bore the name (in Isauria, in Cilicia, and in Osrhoene). The synaxarion tradition attaches Lampadus to the Isaurian Irenopolis, and there is no competing claim, but no detail of the notice would allow the identification to be tested.