21 March 2025 (MIA)

Macedonian Orthodox Church Calendar

St. Theophylactus, Bishop of Nicomedia

When the Emperor’s chief counselor, Tarasius, was, while still a layman, chosen as Patriarch of Constantinople, many were then given the monastic habit by him – these being laymen, friends, and admirers of Tarasius. Among them was this Theophylactus. Tarasius sent him as bishop to Nicomedia.

He was, as a bishop, a good pastor to his flock, and showed rare compassion towards the poor and wretched.

After the death of St. Tarasius, Nicephorus succeeded to the patriarchal throne in Constantinople, and, shortly after that, Leo the Armenian came to the imperial throne.

This later was an iconoclast and as such stirred up a veritable storm in the Church of Christ. Although the iconoclast heresy had been proscribed by the Seventh Ecumenical Council, this Emperor restored it and tried to displace Orthodoxy. St. Theophylactus withstood the Emperor to his face.

For speaking thus St. Theophylactus was, at the Emperor’s command, deposed from his seat and sent into exile, where he spent thirty years enduring many difficulties and insults and where he finally gave his soul to the Lord in about 845.

Catholic Calendar

Serapion The Scholastic

Egyptian monk. Ran the famous catechetical school of Alexandria, Egypt. Resigned to spend more time in prayer and penitence. Disciple of Saint Anthony in the desert. Friend of Saint Athanasius. Bishop of Thmuis, near Diospolis in the Nile delta in 339. Fought Arianism. Supporter of Athanasius, and spoke for him in the council of Sardis in 347. Banished by Emperor Constantius II for his opposition to Arianism.

Named a Confessor of the Faith by Saint Jerome. Wrote against Manicheism, showing that our bodies can be instruments of good or evil, that it is our choice and that just and wicked men often change; it’s, therefore, a lie to think our souls are of God, our bodies of the devil.

Wrote several learned letters, a treatise on the titles of the Psalms, and a sacramentary called the Euchologium, a collection of liturgical prayers. Athanasius wrote several works against Arians at Serapion’s request but thought so much of Sarapion that he told him to revise them as he saw fit. Died c.365-370 of natural causes while in exile in Egypt.