Image 1 of 1: Saint Spiridion, icon from the Church of Saint Spiridion in Kastoria
Saints and feasts
St. Spiridion
Bishop of Tremithus
Spiridion is a very unbookish saint, yet a memorable one.
The reading
ⓘ Butler source
Butler's Lives of the Saints, Volume IV (October-November-December), December 14, St Spiridion, Bishop of Tremithus, Christian Classics 1990, pp. 555-557.
Spiridion is the memorable Cypriot saint who was at once shepherd, married man, and bishop. The old stories preserved around him are affectionate and earthy: thieves unable to escape with his sheep, a hungry traveler served with salt pork despite the fast, straightforward dealings with peasants and strangers, confession in the persecution, and a place at Nicaea among the defenders of the faith. The real point is not to polish Spiridion into a learned ecclesiastic.
He remains rough, direct, scriptural, charitable, and practical. Governing a poor little see, he impressed the ancient Church not by education or rhetoric but by the visible union of holiness and common sense.
Historical note
This life uses St. Spiridion as the strongest full Butler life on the date, while leaving visible that this life preserves a number of famous traditional stories around him.
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