Thomas of Bithynia
Our Venerable Father Thomas Dephourkinos
Venerable · Wonderworker · d. early 10th c.
Commemorated 10 December — Repose
Thomas Dephourkinos was a monk of Bithynia in the ninth and tenth centuries, who from his youth loved the monastic life and rose to govern a monastery newly founded on the river Sangarios before withdrawing into the wilderness to labour in solitude. Overcoming, the tradition says, many assaults of the devil, he was glorified by God with the gifts of healing and of prophecy, so that the emperor Leo VI the Wise sought his counsel. He is commemorated on December 10.
Thomas, surnamed Dephourkinos, was born in Bithynia, the province of north-west Asia Minor facing Constantinople across the sea. From his youth he was drawn to the monastic life and entered one of the monasteries of the region. When a Byzantine official — the sources give his name as Galoliktos — founded a new monastery by the river Sangarios (Sagaris), Thomas was already a monk of tried experience, and the brethren chose him as their superior. But the office did not hold him: from the monastery he withdrew into the wilderness, where for a long time he lived in solitude and ascetic labour, and there, the tradition relates, he overcame many snares of the enemy of mankind. In reward for his struggle the Lord granted him the gifts of healing and of foreknowledge.
The most-repeated story of his discernment concerns the emperor Leo VI the Wise (886–911), who came to the monastery to consult the holy man. Not finding Thomas there, the emperor sent a messenger to him with a written question; and no sooner had the messenger reached the elder's hut than Thomas came out and handed him a sealed reply, having already answered the emperor's question before it was put — a sign of the prophetic gift with which God had endowed him. The year of his repose is not recorded; he is placed in the reign of Leo the Wise and the generation that followed.
Feast and commemoration
December 10 (church date; Old Calendar civil December 23), within the Nativity Fast. His memory is kept in the Byzantine synaxarion tradition on the day of the martyrs Menas, Hermogenes and Eugraphus.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 8
In thee, O Father, was the divine image preserved with exactness; for taking up thy cross, thou didst follow Christ, and by thy deeds thou didst teach us to despise the flesh, for it passes away, but to care for the soul, a thing immortal. Therefore, O venerable Thomas, thy spirit rejoices with the angels.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
No pre-modern image of Thomas Dephourkinos identified as his has been secured for storage. He would be depicted after the manner of the monastic saints — an elderly ascetic in the monastic habit, blessing or holding a scroll. The entry is listed for a wanted icon.