Agapius

Venerable Agapius was a monk of Palestine in the fifth century, a disciple and fellow ascetic of Venerable Passarion. The Church commemorates him on 10 May, together with his teacher and with Venerable Philemon, Passarion's other disciple.

No details of Agapius's own life have survived. What is known concerns the setting in which he was formed. Passarion, a priest, was one of the most renowned ascetics of Palestine in the time of Patriarch Juvenal of Jerusalem (420-458). The Greek synaxarion says that he was also a teacher of Saint Euthymius the Great.

In Jerusalem Passarion founded a home for the aged, which also had a house of prayer bearing his name, where his memory was kept on 21 November. According to Cyril of Scythopolis, he passed to the Lord in 428, a few months after the dedication of the church of the lavra of Saint Euthymius.

Agapius and Philemon were Passarion's disciples and lived the ascetic life together with him, which is why tradition commemorates all three on the same day. Their memory is recorded in the Jerusalem Kanonarion, the ancient order of feasts of the Church of the Holy City.

The calendar of the Church of Greece still commemorates Passarion the presbyter, Philemon and Agapius on 10 May.