Celebration date: 16/12/2021
The biographical details of Saint Modestos are quite confusing. For example, his father Eusebius and his mother Theodouli from Sebastia in Palestine, they want them to die in prison under Maximianus (286 – 305 AD), while we know that the years of the patriarchate of this Saint were from 632 A.D. until 634 AD
Agios Modestos renovated the Holy Pilgrimages, which were destroyed by the Persians and asked for the help of the Christians from the East.
After he lived and did a lot for the Holy Land, he passed away peacefully.
The Saint is said to protect animals, especially those that drag a plough. On his feast, not only oxen “celebrate”, but by extension all domestic animals. In many places, rituals and consecrations take place and after the animals are “blessed – read” by the priest, huts are built. Eventually they give it to the animals to eat. In Lesbos of Agios Modestos, they take holy water and sprinkle it on their fields, to save them from locusts and all other evils. Read here a “wish of the Holy Modest Bishop of Jerusalem, said for every deadly disease and damage of oxen, horses, horses, halflings, sheep, goats, bees, and other animals”.
