Cosmas of Chalcedon and His Disciple Saint Auxentius

1, On May 1—a date that’s very easy to remember—the Church commemorates Saint Cosmas the Confessor and his disciple, Saint Auxentius. It is important to distinguish Saint Auxentius, disciple of Cosmas the Confessor, from another 5th-century saint of the same name, Auxentius of Bithynia, who is associated with the history of one of the four Byzantine monastic mountains, which was aptly named “Mount Saint Auxentius.” Of these four holy mountains, only Mount Athos has survived to the present day. The Holy Mountains took on special significance as a refuge for monks and icons in the face of iconoclasm. Hagiography has preserved almost no details about the lives of Saints Cosmas and Auxentius. We know only that Cosmas was an irreproachable monastic bishop, originally from Constantinople, and that Auxentius was his faithful disciple and assistant.

2, Saint Cosmas was the bishop of Chalcedon, a city located on the Asian shore of the Bosporus, directly across from Constantinople. Over the centuries, as the Great City expanded toward Asia Minor, Chalcedon became a district of the Byzantine and later Ottoman capital and is now known as Kadıköy. It was the Fourth Ecumenical Council, held there in 451, that brought the city great renown. Dedicated to questions of Christology, it implemented, within the universal Church, a sweeping reform of ecclesiastical organization, during which imperial power literally imposed on the episcopate a system of cooperation among five autonomous patriarchates. From that time until the present day, the role of the Orthodox Bishop of Chalcedon has always been of great importance.

3, During the second phase of Byzantine iconoclasm, which lasted from 813 to 843, Cosmas opposed the heretical policies of Emperor Leo V the Armenian. Contrary to the decisions of the Seventh Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 787, which had proclaimed the veneration of icons as an Orthodox dogma, Leo V championed the resumption of the persecution of sacred images. Cosmas was persecuted, exiled, and imprisoned. Iconoclasm became the bloodiest and longest-lasting persecution in the entire history of the Church, during which Christians who considered themselves Orthodox but opposed sacred images subjected their brothers and sisters to torture and murder with extreme fanatical cruelty. Saint Cosmas the Confessor ended his days in utter exhaustion. We do not know exactly what torments were inflicted upon the two saints, Cosmas and Auksentius, but they were undoubtedly severe. Saint Cosmas the Confessor passed away in extreme exhaustion, apparently around the year 816, accompanied by Saint Auxentius. 

4, The example of Saints Cosmas and Auxentius teaches us to recognize the differences in vocations. While authority and teaching in the firm adherence to the Orthodox faith are essential for a bishop on the path to holiness, for a monk or layperson it is sufficient to be a reliable helper and a faithful disciple and, of course, show solidarity in times of hardship.