Athanasius

Saint Athanasius was bishop of Methoni in the Peloponnese and fell asleep around 880. The Church commemorates him on 10 December (new style, the Greek calendar). He was born in Catania in Sicily, probably between 814 and 818.

Around 827 his parents, because of the Arabs ravaging Sicily, came to Old Patras. There lived at that time, of the same age as he, the future great and learned hierarch of Caesarea, Arethas of Patras. While still young, Athanasius asked to become a monk and did so in one of the monasteries of the region. He took up the monastic struggles bravely and hurried to win the prize of the upward calling, so that the metropolitan of Patras, despite his repeated refusals, made him abbot of the monastery. Being abbot did not interrupt his virtuous life but showed that he could serve the Church in a higher office; therefore the metropolitan of Patras ordained him bishop of Methoni, which then belonged to his metropolis.

As bishop in little Methoni, Athanasius worked with wonderful zeal to meet all the material and spiritual needs of his flock, while himself being a perfect model of evangelical poverty and of all the Christian virtues. When the hour of his departure to God drew near, he called his disciples and counselled them always to practise the virtue of love and unceasingly to keep the memory of the Lord's Second Coming. After his blessed falling asleep, his tomb became a source of miracles, and crowds came to receive healing.