The Monk John Psychantes the Confessor

Commemorated on May 26

      The Monk John Psychantes the Confessor lived during the end-VIII beginning-IX Century. In his youth he left the secular world and accepted monasticism in the Psukhanteia Lavra (in the suburbs of Constantinople). For his holy life and salvific exploits, the monk received from God the gift to cast out demons and to heal the sick. During this time there raged the heresy of the iconoclasts, and those venerating holy icons were subjected to persecution. They led away the Monk John for interrogation, where they put him under coercion to renounce the veneration of holy icons and to sign a renunciation. The monk in place of a renunciation denounced the persecutors, calling the emperor Leo Isauros (717-741) an heretic. For this they sent the monk into exile, where he died, having endured much distress from the iconoclasts.

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