Our Holy Father Auxentius.

Commemorated February 14 in the Orthodox Christian Menaion

From the Prologue

A very distinguished administrator in Constantinople among the officials and courtiers of the Emperor Theodosius the Younger, he was set aflame by the love of Christ. Auxentius became a monk and remained only a short time in Constantinople. When men began to praise him, he fled and settled on a mountain near Chalcedon that later became known as Auxentius's mountain. He could not realise his desire to remain there permanently, hidden from men, as some shepherds found him and made his whereabouts known. They began to bring the sick to him to be healed, and he healed many of them. He restored sight to the blind and cleansed lepers, anointing them with oil. He also raised up the palsied and freed many who had been possessed by demons. All this was cause for wonder, but his humility was more wonderful. When he was asked to pray for the healing of someone, he excused himself with the words: 'I also am a sinful man.' But, constrained by many requests, he approached the healing in the following way: either he called all present to pray with him for the sick person, or he first stirred up the faith of the people and told them that God would give according to their faith, or he said over the head of the sick person: 'The Lord Jesus Christ heals you.' He did this that the wonder worked should not be attributed to him but to almighty God. He took part in the Fourth Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon and powerfully defended Orthodoxy against the Eutychian and Nestorian heresies. He lived to a great age; then, in 470, God took his youthful soul to Himself and left his aged body on the earth from which it was made.

From The Prologue From Ochrid by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich
©1985 Lazarica Press, Birmingham UK