Saint Spyridon of Trimythous

Saint Spyridon was a fourth-century bishop of Trimythous in Cyprus. Before he became a shepherd of the Church he tended sheep, and out of humility he did not give up that work even as a bishop. The Roman Martyrology calls him a true shepherd of sheep, whose marvelous deeds were praised by all. The Church commemorates him on December 12.

Almost everything known about him was handed down by the ancient historians of the Church: Rufinus of Aquileia, Socrates Scholasticus, and Sozomen. We do not know the year of his birth. Sozomen writes that he was a peasant and had a wife and children; one daughter is known by name, Irene, who lived as a virgin and died before her father. According to Socrates, Spyridon was already so holy as a shepherd of sheep that he was entrusted with the bishopric of Trimythous, today’s Tremetousia.

According to stories that were told about him in Cyprus, thieves crept into his sheepfold one night, but an invisible power held them there until morning. The bishop set them free, urged them to live by honest work, and gave them a ram so that they would not have kept watch in vain. Another time someone came to claim a valuable object left in the keeping of Irene, who had died without telling anyone where she had hidden it. Spyridon is said to have gone then to his daughter’s grave, asked her about the deposit, and received an answer.

Sozomen adds that Spyridon gave part of his harvest to the poor and lent part of it to those in need without interest. To a weary traveler who came to him during Lent he had salt pork served, since there was neither bread nor flour in the house, and he ate with him, recalling that to the pure all things are pure. And when the learned bishop Triphyllius, quoting the Gospel, replaced a plain word of the text with a more refined one, Spyridon asked him in front of everyone whether he was better than the One who had spoken it.

Rufinus and Socrates name Spyridon among the bishops gathered in 325 at the Council of Nicaea, although his name does not appear in the surviving lists of participants. Saint Athanasius names him, next to Triphyllius, among the bishops of Cyprus who signed the decisions of the Synod of Sardica of about 343.

The year of Spyridon’s death is not certain; tradition gives 348. His first Life was written in the middle of the seventh century by Bishop Theodore of Paphos. The saint’s relics were transferred to Constantinople at the end of the seventh century and, in the middle of the fifteenth century, when the city fell to the Turks, to the island of Corfu. They rest there to this day in the church that bears his name, and the islanders venerate him as the patron of the island.

Spyridon has been venerated as a saint since antiquity, without a formal canonization. The Christian East calls him the Wonderworker and likewise keeps his memory on December 12. The former Roman Martyrology commemorated him on December 14 and counted him among the confessors maimed during the persecutions; the current edition does not repeat this report. Pope Francis, visiting Cyprus in 2021, named him among the best known and most venerated saints of that island.