POTAPIUS OF CONSTANTINOPLE

In the person of Saint Potapius, we meet an ancient monk and ascetic, who during his lifetime was awarded by God the gift of healing ailments and serious illnesses. Like Panteleimon, Cyrus and John, Cosmas and Damian, and others, the saint intercedes before God in the host of heavenly helpers and healers.

According to life, Potapius was from Egypt. Therefore, according to his place of origin, he is often called Potapius of Thebes. He began his monastic life in his homeland. Probably due to the many dogmatic disputes that engulfed Egyptian Christianity and monasticism at that time, Potapius retired to Constantinople.

In the capital, he settled near the city wall, hoping in this way to hide from the attention of the townspeople and pass for a simple pious stranger. However, soon disciples and pilgrims began to flock to him.

The memory of the Church preserves the story of four great healings performed through the prayer of the saint during his lifetime. Thus, the Lord gave sight to a man born blind, restored health to a man suffering from dropsy, expelled demons from a man extremely possessed by them, and healed a woman who was in the last stage of the disease from breast cancer.

These were miracle-workings close to the Gospel images and amazing in their power of boldness. The life of the saint is also associated with the Egyptian monastery in Constantinople, and his relics were subsequently placed in the Church of John the Baptist not far from this monastery. It seemed to the saint’s contemporaries that centuries after the emergence of monasticism in Egypt, which was bold and full of signs, the grace and power of ancient monasticism was again revealed in the capital of the Empire. The time of the saint’s life was the sixth or even seventh century.

The memory of Saint Potapius was preserved in the Church of Constantinople for many centuries. Right up until the city was captured by the Ottomans in 1453, Christian pilgrims flocked to its relics. After this, the saint’s relics were transferred to mainland Greece, but were lost. In the village of Loutraki on the shores of the Ionian Sea, not far from Corinth, they were rediscovered by believers at the beginning of the last century. From that moment on, the memory of Saint Potapius, as a helper in illnesses and disasters, revived again among believers. A monastery arose at the site of the shrine, which became a place of pilgrimage.