7 little-known facts about St. Spyridon Trimifuntsky
On December 25, the Orthodox Church commemorates the saint and the miracle-worker Spiridon, Bishop of Trimifuntsky, who, because of the abundance of countless miracles performed by him, is revered on a par with St. Nicholas, the archbishop of World of Lycian, and sometimes these saints are depicted on icons together.
However, it is not only the abundance of miracles or the height of the prayerful and confessional feat of St. Spyridon that makes him so famous both in the East and in the West. The life of the saint contains many secrets that, under the dust of many centuries, hide from us some remarkable and surprising facts from his life. Below we offer you to get acquainted with several of them, and the most interesting in our opinion:
Fact number 1. Saint Spyridon of Trimifuntsky was a married bishop and had a daughter, whose name was Irina. Before the Trullan Cathedral of 691, any bishop could have been in the first and only marriage, which corresponded to the words of the Apostle Paul about the bishop as the husband of one wife (1 Tim. 3: 2).
Fact number 2. The cap with which Saint Spyridon of Trimifunts is depicted on icons is often interpreted as an attribute of his past, i.e. shepherd's headdress, which he simply wore out of considerations of humility. However, in fact, this woolen cap is nothing but the early form of the miter.
Fact number 3. The name of the saint and miracle-worker Spiridon is closely connected with the history of the Venetian Republic, part of which was once the Greek island of Kerkyra or Corfu, which was more familiar to us. August 11, 1716, thanks to the help of the saint, the Venetian island of Corfu was miraculously saved from the Turkish invasion. In memory of this, the government of Venice, whose doge was Giovanni II Cornaro, declared August 11 as a holiday with the obligatory performance of “Litany to St Spyridon”.
Fact number 4. St. Spyridon is the patron saint of pottery and potters in particular, as well as the patron of the aforementioned Corfu island, which he not only saved from the Turks, but also freed from the terrible famine and plague epidemic in 1630.
Fact number 5. The most famous miracle of St. Spyridon is that which was completely by him at the First Ecumenical Council of the 325th year. According to the tradition of the Church, St Spyridon of Trimifuntsky, as well as the Archbishop of Lycia, Nicholas the Wonderworker, were present at this Council and were remembered by its delegates in their own way. The miracle that St. Spiridon accomplished consisted of the following: after his diatribe addressed to the Arians, the saint asked those present to give him a simple brick. Everyone was surprised by the request, but they did it. Taking up a heavy piece of ceramics, the bishop began to squeeze it in his hands. In the eyes of astonished people, the solid brick kilned in the furnace became soft as wax. A moment later, flames shot out of him and water began to flow. A second later, in the hands of Spiridon lay a lump of raw pottery clay. The saint uttered:
- See, it seems, and the three elements - clay, water and fire. But the brick is still one! So in the Most Holy Trinity - Three Persons, and the Divine One!
Fact number 6. The imperishable relics of St. Spyridon have a constant temperature of 36.6 degrees and the body weight of an adult male. At least four times a year, slippers on the feet of the saint must be replaced with new ones.
Fact number 7. The saint and wonderworker Spiridon Trimifuntsky is the heavenly patron of the famous noble family of Tolstoy, from which the great writer, who was later excommunicated, Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy. In one of the two branches of this kind, the golden reliquary cross with a particle of the relics of the saint is inherited. Currently, the guardian of the shrine is Count Nikolai Dmitrievich Tolstoy-Miloslavsky, a British historian and politician of Russian origin.
