Praylius of Jerusalem
Our Father among the Saints Praylius, Archbishop of Jerusalem
Patriarch · Bishop · d. 422, at Jerusalem
Commemorated 27 August — Repose at Jerusalem
Praylius held the see of Jerusalem for five years, from 417 to 422, between the long episcopate of John II and the still longer one of Juvenal, in the years when the Pelagian controversy was being fought out on Palestinian ground and when Jerusalem was beginning to press the claims that would make it a patriarchate a generation later. Theodoret says of him that his character matched his name, which in Greek means meek. He is commemorated on August 27.
The see of Jerusalem in his time
Praylius succeeded John II in 417. Jerusalem in the early fifth century was still, canonically, a suffragan see of the metropolitan of Caesarea — Nicaea's seventh canon had granted it honour without jurisdiction — but the flood of pilgrimage, the great churches built since Constantine, and the finding of the relics of the Protomartyr Stephen at Kaphar Gamala in 415, in John II's last years, had made it in fact one of the most visible bishoprics in Christendom. Praylius inherited the situation and, so far as the record shows, administered it quietly; the aggressive assertion of Jerusalem's rank belongs to his successor Juvenal, who held the see from 422 to 458 and secured its patriarchal status at Chalcedon.
His episcopate falls squarely within the Pelagian affair. Pelagius had settled in Palestine, and under John II had been examined and cleared by the synod of Diospolis (Lydda) in 415 — a decision that scandalised the African bishops and Augustine, who wrote at length to demonstrate that the synod had been misled. When the question came before Rome, the see of Jerusalem was necessarily involved; Praylius is recorded as writing to Rome in the matter, in terms understood as favourable to Pelagius, and the correspondence belongs to the dossier that ended with Pelagius' condemnation by Pope Zosimus in 418. The record of Praylius' own position is thin and reaches us through hostile western intermediaries, and it is stated here with that caution.
He died in 422 and was succeeded by Juvenal.
Character
The one personal notice is the remark of Theodoret of Cyrus, who observes that the man's bearing and disposition answered to his name — πραΰλιος being formed from πραΰς, meek, gentle. It is a small thing to have preserved of a bishop, and it is very likely why the Church remembered him: a five-year episcopate in a turbulent see, remarked on by a historian for gentleness.
Feast and commemoration
August 27 (church date; New Calendar civil August 27, Old Calendar civil September 9), a secondary commemoration on a day whose principal saint is Poemen the Great. The commemoration is carried in the Greek enumerations of the day and among the hierarchs of Jerusalem; it does not appear in the OCA day-page. There is no proper office.
Hymns
Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of a hierarch)
A rule of faith and an image of meekness thou wast shown to be to thy flock, O father Praylius, shepherding the holy city of God in gentleness; wherefore thou hast gained by humility the things on high, and by poverty the things that are rich: intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Iconography
Praylius is painted, where he is painted at all, in the ranks of the bishops of Jerusalem that decorate the sanctuaries of Palestinian churches and the Patriarchate: a hierarch in phelonion and omophorion, greying or white-bearded, holding the Gospel and blessing, identified only by the inscription. He has no attribute and no scene.
No pre-1900 image identifiable as this saint has been located, and August lies outside the range of the Menologion of Basil II, which covers only September to February.
Disputed questions
- The Pelagian correspondence. Praylius' letter to Rome is known from the western side of the controversy, where every act of the Palestinian bishops was read as complicity. Whether he was persuaded of Pelagius' orthodoxy, or was simply reporting the finding of a synod held under his predecessor, cannot now be determined; no eastern source treats him as anything but orthodox, and the Church commemorates him without qualification.
- Spelling. The name appears as Praylius, Praulius, Praylios and Pravlios in English and Latin sources, all rendering Πραΰλιος. The form with y is used here as the closer transliteration; Praulius is the form found in the calendar enumerations.
- The date of his accession. 417 is the conventional date and follows from the death of John II in that year; some lists give 416.