Alexander the Charcoal-⁠burner

The Holy Hieromartyr Alexander, called the Charcoal-⁠burner, was Bishop of Comana in Pontus in the third century. The Church remembers him as a man who chose humility so deeply that he hid his virtues behind a face blackened with coal, until God raised him to the office of bishop.

His name comes from the trade he took up out of humility, to escape the honours of the world: he burned and sold charcoal. Because of it he went about covered in soot and dressed in rags. He was also called a philosopher, but the word is not to be taken literally: his philosophy was a love of heavenly things above earthly ones. His virtues were found out by chance, through the very contempt with which people regarded him.

Saint Gregory the Wonderworker, Bishop of Neocaesarea, had been called to Comana to help choose a bishop. He rejected all the candidates, and someone, in mockery, suggested he take Alexander the Charcoal-⁠burner. Gregory took the remark seriously, summoned him and found a holy man of great ability. Alexander was made bishop and governed the Church wisely.

In the persecution of Decius, around 251, he received the crown of martyrdom by being burned alive. We would know little of him had Saint Gregory of Nyssa not described his election in his discourse on the life of Saint Gregory the Wonderworker. His name is absent from the old Greek and Roman calendars. The Orthodox Church keeps his memory in August, and the Roman Catholic Church on 11 August.