Saint Panteleimon

Martyr
Commemoration - July 27

Prayer - Almighty God, you gave great grace to your servant and martyr, Panteleimon. He ministered your gifts of healing to those in need and was a stedfast witness to the true faith that saves. May we, like him, endure the hardships that faith brings, remaining always faithful to the calling you have placed on our lives, even unto death. We make our prayer through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

Readings - No Appointed Readings

Biography - This Saint, who had Nicomedia as his homeland, was the son of Eustorgius and Eubula. His father was a pagan, but his mother was a Christian from her ancestors. It was through her that he was instructed in piety, and still later, he was catechized in the Faith of Christ by Saint Hermolaus and baptized by him.

Being proficient in the physician's vocation, he practiced it in a philanthropic manner, healing every illness more by the grace of Christ than by medicines. Thus, although his parents had named him Pantaleon ("in all things a lion"), because of the compassion he showed for the souls and bodies of all, he was worthily renamed Panteleimon, meaning "all-merciful."

On one occasion, when he restored the sight of a certain blind man by calling on the Divine Name, he enlightened also the eyes of this man's soul to the knowledge of the truth. This also became the cause for the martyrdom of him who had been blind, since when he was asked by whom and in what manner his eyes had been opened, in imitation of that blind man of the Gospel he confessed with boldness both who the physician was and the manner of his healing. For this he was put to death immediately.

Panteleimon was arrested also, and having endured many wounds, he was finally beheaded in the year 305, during the reign of Maximian. Saint Panteleimon is one of the Holy Unmercenaries, physicians who ministered their gifts of healing to all they encountered, regardless of their ability to pay.