Cosmas of Asia

Holy Unmercenary Wonderworker Cosmas of Asia was the brother of Saint Damian, with whom he is commemorated on 14 November, together with their mother, the Venerable Theodotia. The Azbyka page tells their life together.

Asia was the ancient name of a part of Asia Minor. Neither the time of their birth nor of their death is known; it is known only that they lived no later than the fourth century. This may be believed, first, because in the first half of the fifth century, in the time of Theodosius the Younger, churches were built in their name, and second, because the Copts, separated from Orthodoxy since the Council of Chalcedon, recognise them among the saints, while they do not accept saints who lived after that time.

Their father was a Greek and a pagan, their mother a Christian named Theodotia. They lost their father in their early years, but this turned to their good: their mother had more freedom to devote herself to raising the children. Resolved to remain a widow all her life, she fulfilled the Christian law with zeal and cared only to please the Lord, being a true widow, as the Apostle Paul praises. For this reason the Holy Church numbered her among the saints, calling her venerable, and commemorates her with her children. From infancy she instilled in them the fear of God and love of virtue, and then placed them to learn letters with a God-⁠fearing man. Here the chief study was Holy Scripture, but, moved by love for suffering men, they also learned the art of medicine, knowing the healing properties of herbs and plants.

The Lord blessed their good intention and granted them the grace of healing and working miracles. Illnesses ceased as soon as Cosmas and Damian began to treat them. The blind, lame, paralysed and possessed gathered round them. The saints themselves went in search of the sick, from city to city and village to village, and gave healing to all without distinction of sex, age or station. They did this not to grow rich or famous, but to serve the suffering for God. So they accepted no reward, keeping the command of the Saviour: "Freely you have received, freely give". Only one thing they asked of those healed: to believe firmly in Christ and live holily in Him, and the unenlightened they urged to the Christian faith. In this way they healed the sicknesses of body and of soul. Their healing power extended also to animals: finding once in the desert a camel half dead, struck down by the devil, they healed it and left it well.

The brothers never separated and prayed, walked and healed together, having a vow to accept nothing from anyone; fearing that one of them might take gifts in secret from those healed, they kept the vow all their lives, until the Lord permitted one of them to break it. A woman named Palladia, long sick and healed by them, could not make them accept gifts, so she came secretly to Damian with three eggs and begged him, in the Name of God, to accept them in the name of the Holy Trinity. After long refusal, Damian accepted, for the sake of her oath. Cosmas learned of it and grieved, and left a command that at their death Damian's body should not be laid with his. That night the Lord appeared to him and said that the eggs were not accepted as payment but because of the woman's oath in His Name. Cosmas was calmed but told no one the vision. After many signs and wonders he reposed in peace, and after a little while Damian also reposed in peace. The people who honoured their memory stood perplexed where to lay Damian, afraid to break Cosmas's command. Then a camel came to them and spoke: it was the one healed long ago by the saints, and it told the secret of Cosmas, that they should not be separated. The people thanked the Lord and laid the relics in one coffin, in the place called Pherman, which no longer exists, having been destroyed by the Turks. Soon a wonderful church was built there, to which the sick came from near and far.

The page also tells some of their miracles. A woman, the wife of Malchus of Pherman, left under the protection of the saints when her husband went far away, was lured by the devil disguised as an acquaintance, but at her cry two horsemen appeared, and the evil spirit fled and fell to destruction. When she asked who they were, they answered: "We are Cosmas and Damian, to whom your husband entrusted you", and vanished. A deaf and mute woman, after praying for many years, heard and sang the Trisagion during vespers in their church. A Greek, a worshipper of Castor and Pollux, gravely ill, was sent by friends to their church and, healed after learning that they were servants of Christ, received holy Baptism. The narrator says it is easier to measure the sea and count the stars than to tell all their miracles; of them twelve have been described.

Cosmas and Damian are also considered patrons of those who study, since their icons and life show how they were taken by their mother to learn letters, and in the service they are praised as wise doctors who give knowledge to all. Their commemoration on 14 November, in the new style, is kept together with their mother.