Saint Methodios the Hieromartyr bishop of Patara
Date of celebration: 20/06
Saint Methodius lived in the 6th AD. century. His rare virtue and the great education that distinguished him elevated him to the episcopal throne of Patara.
As a bishop, he strove to perform his duties perfectly. His enlightening speech, combined with his holy example, nourished the souls of the people of his flock. He was a sleepless guardian of the orthodox doctrine and was determined throughout his life to “guard the doctrines specified by the apostles” (Acts of the Apostles, p. 4). To guard, that is, the decisions that had been definitively judged as the only correct ones by the Apostles. That is why he succeeded after a systematic struggle to significantly limit the followers of Origen’s false doctrines in his province. But those few who remained, in order to take revenge, managed to place their own servant near Methodius. And one day when the bishop fell ill, he killed him with a knife. But while he was stabbing him, Methodius heard the murderer say: “this is how the Origenists kill.” Then he grinned slightly and bowed his head in contentment, surrendering his spirit to the Lord. It was joy, because he fell victim to his duty to preserve the correct doctrines of the Church.
However, S. Eustratiadis, in his Hagiologio, has a different opinion about the biographical details of this Saint and we quote it as it is: “He flourished around the end of the third and the beginning of the tenth century; according to Hieronymus (De Nirill. 83 ) and the historian Socrates (Eccl. Hist. 6,13) was not the bishop of Patara, but of Olympus in Lycia and perhaps the bishop of Tire (Phoenicia), but according to another opinion, the bishop of Philippi in Macedonia. This fallacy, of being called the bishop of Patara, came from the fact that his dialogue about the resurrection takes place in Patara. Methodius was an eminent priest and Platonic philosopher, a fierce opponent of the originalists and an apprentice poet, as can be seen from his surviving work “Symposium of the ten virgins or on chastity”. During the persecution of Diocletian, he was martyred in Chalkidi (Syria).
