The Monk Athanasias the Confessor

Commemorated on February 22

      The Monk Athanasias the Confessor was born in Constantinople of rich and pious parents. From the time of his childhood he dreamt of totally devoting himself to God, and having attained to maturity of age, he settled in one of the Nicomedia monasteries, called the Paulopetreia (i.e., in the names of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul), and he took monastic vows there. The high degree of his ascetic life became known at the imperial court. During the reign of the iconoclast emperor, Leo the Armenian (813‑820), Saint Athanasias was subjected to torture for venerating icons, and then underwent exile, grief and suffering. Confessing the Orthodox faith to the very end of his life, the Monk Athanasias died peacefully in the year 821.

© 1996-2001 by translator Fr. S. Janos.