PROKOPIOS THE CONFESSOR OF DECAPOLIS

The memory of saint Prokopios Decapolites, who was a confessor of Orthodox icon veneration, is celebrated on March 12, the second day after the memory of Saint Tarasius of Constantinople (730–806), and on the eve of the memory of his companion and contemporary Basil the Confessor. All three were heroes of the resistance against Byzantine iconoclasm, and the commemoration of Procopius and Basil, whose exact dates of birth and death are unclear, was most likely timed to coincide with the commemoration of Patriarch Tarasius.

The saint was a monk, a hermit, and then the founder of a monastery in the ancient historical region of Asia Minor called Isauria. The Isaurian commonwealth of ten cities, or Decapolis in Greek, was also located there, which should be distinguished from the Palestinian Decapolis in Syria and Jordan, which is mentioned in the Gospel. Hence the name of the saint, “Procopios Decapolites.”

During the second Byzantine iconoclastic period, which began with the accession of Emperor Leo V the Armenian (813–820), Procopius suffered greatly at the hands of heretics. He was arrested, tortured, and then an official came to him in prison and tried to persuade him to support the emperor’s policy. At the same time, he, like the ruler himself, was a heretic iconoclast. Wanting to deceive Procopius, he took the icon that the saint always carried with him and kissed it. In doing so, he seemed to suggest that the persecution of icons was “merely” a matter of politics, and that it was possible to support heretical rulers and remain Orthodox. Procopios declared that this was a lie, and that all of them, the emperor and his officials, were simply heretics if they did not venerate icons. This was the apotheosis of Procopius’ confession of faith, his martyrdom.

The Seventh Ecumenical Council in Nicaea in 787 proclaimed icon veneration a dogma, therefore iconoclasts were not simply reformers of Christian worship, as they presented themselves, but heretics. According to the Fathers of the Council, an icon is not simply a “Bible for the illiterate” or a “work of art,” but proof of the Incarnation, a bold confession that God in Christ Jesus became man, and thus became visible. It is not only possible but necessary to depict the Lord Jesus and His saints, and the images themselves must be venerated.

“O most glorious Prokopios, initiate of heavenly Mysteries, the Church honors you today as a morning star which dispels all the gloom of heresy", says the kontakion to the saint, which is sung in the fourth tone.. After Prokopios’ death, which is believed to have occurred around 820, it took another two decades before the Orthodox Empress Theodora, who took the reins of power in Constantinople, ended the policy of iconoclasm and restored icon veneration in 843. This event went down in history and is celebrated on the first Sunday of Great Lent as the Triumph of Orthodoxy. Saint Procopios of Decapolis, Confessor, was undoubtedly one of the architects of this event.