Achillius of Larissa

Saint Achillius was bishop of Larissa, in Thessaly, in the fourth century, one of the 318 Fathers at the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea. He fell asleep in 330 (in other sources, as late as 355). His feast is on 15 May.

According to some sources he was born around 270 into a Christian family in Cappadocia and received a good education, religious and secular; he was known for piety and humble life. After his parents' death he gave all he had to the needy and went to Jerusalem, where for some years he lived in fasting and prayer at the Lord's tomb; then he went to Thessaly, and after the death of the bishop of Larissa he was placed on the throne. He zealously planted Christianity, destroying idol shrines, building and adorning churches. Tradition holds him a healer of diseases, especially of possession, a worker of many miracles.

In 325 he took part in the Council of Nicaea, where, with Saint Nicholas and Saint Spyridon, he fought against the heresy of Arius, and gave a speech of rebuke against Arius and his followers. Tradition also tells a miracle of his: taking a stone, he cried to the Arians: If Christ is a creature of God, as you say, tell oil to flow from this stone. The Arians kept silent, amazed at such a demand. Then the saint said: And if the Son of God is equal to the Father, as we believe, let oil flow from this stone. And oil flowed, to the amazement of all. Returning from the Council he pulled down many pagan temples, built many churches and cast out many evil spirits. His death was, by all sources, peaceful, with repentance and a last counsel for his flock.

In 978 or 985-986, when the Bulgarian tsar Samuel conquered Thessaly, he took the saint's relics by force from Larissa and brought them to Prespa, to the island in Lake Little Prespa, since called after him Agios Achilleios; there Samuel built a basilica for the saint whom he greatly honoured and was buried in its south aisle. About 1015 part of the relics was returned to Larissa. Toward the end of the thirteenth century the Serbian king Stefan Dragutin raised or rebuilt the church of Saint Achillius at Arilje, where the relics were taken and, it seems, buried. His veneration was great in Samuel's archbishopric of Prespa, then at Ohrid and in Serbia. A district of Larissa bears his name. He is not to be confused with the martyr Archilius, commemorated on 6 April.