Saturday, December 12

Golden Age · c. 270–348

St Spyridon the Wonderworker

Shepherd bishop of Trimythous, wonderworker

Spyridon was a simple shepherd of Cyprus, married with a daughter, so beloved for his humility and charity that after his wife's death he was made bishop of Trimythous — and continued to tend his sheep. A confessor who suffered in the persecution before Constantine, he attended the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 325, where tradition tells that this unlettered shepherd silenced a philosopher defending Arius, and demonstrated the Trinity by grasping a brick, from which fire rose upward and water fell, the clay remaining in his hand — three in one. His wonders were homely and abundant: rain in drought, a torrent halted, grain given to the poor, his dead daughter Irene answering him from the grave about a deposit entrusted to her. His incorrupt relics were carried to Corfu, whose patron he is, and are borne in procession to this day.

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