[Reposted on behalf of Carolyn]
Today, 14 December, is the feast of ...
* Heron, Arsenius and Isidore, martyrs (250)
- burned to death in Alexandria
* Dioscorus (late third century)
- tortured along with the above-mentioned martyrs, he was released
because of his young age (fifteen years)
* Justus and Abundus, martyrs (284)
* Spiridion, confessor (350)
- a Cypriot shepherd, he became bishop; famed for his knowledge of the
Bible despite his lack of education, at the Council of Nicaea he
supposedly converted a philosopher
* Nicasius, Florentius, Jucundus, and Eutropia, martyrs (c. 407)
- the first three -- respectively bishop, deacon and lector of Reims --
were beheaded by marauding barbarians (weren't all barbarians
'marauding'?); Eutropia, the bishop's sister, was killed when she
attacked her brother's murderers
* Venantius Fortunatus, confessor (600)
- bishop of Poitiers, noted poet and hagiographer (author of vita of
Radegunde)
* Fulquinus, confessor (855)
- bishop of Therouanne
* John of the Cross, confessor (1591)
- great Carmelite mystic, declared Doctor of the Church in 1926
On Spiridion, our members offered the following comments:
Andrew Jotischky (on Spiridion):
There is a 13th-century wall-painting of Spiridion in, of all places, the
church of St Mary, Upchurch, Kent. He wasn't a saint who, to my knowledge,
appeared extensively in western iconography, though there are of course
mosaic cycles depicting him in Cyprus. One speculation as to the source of
transmission of the legend is that a Kentish crusader came across him in
Cyprus; another link may be the Carmelites, who founded a convent at
Aylesford, in Kent, in 1242, only four years after their first settlement in
Cyprus and who seem to have had a devotion to Spiridion at any rate by the
15th century and possibly earlier. What seems most odd about the Upchurch
cycle is that the iconography does not relate to the best-known traditions
about Spiridion as told by Sozomen and Socrates, but rather to the 10th
century compilation of Simeon Metaphrastes. One would have expected the
Historia Tripartita, the Latin translation of Eusebius and his
continuators, to have been better known in 13th cent. England than Simeon
Metaphrastes. The paintings themselves are much mutilated, but drawings were
made in 1875 when they were uncovered.
Bill East(on Spridirion):
Patron saint of Corfu, where his uncorrupt body is kept. Almost all the men
of Corfu are called Spiros after him. The body is kept in a glass-topped
coffin, which stands usually in the horizontal position. However, on his
several feast days it is carried around vertically in procession; and
friends, I know: I've taken part in that procession.
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