Damian of Asia

Holy Unmercenary Physician Damian of Asia was the brother of Saint Cosmas, the son of Venerable Theodotia. Cosmas and Damian are commemorated on 14 November, together with their mother, as unmercenary physicians and wonderworkers. Their homeland was Asia, as a part of Asia Minor was called in ancient times. Neither the year of their birth nor of their death is known. It is certain only that they lived not later than the fourth century, because in the first half of the fifth century, in the time of Emperor Theodosius the Younger, churches were built in their name, and because the Copts too, separated from Orthodoxy since the Council of Chalcedon (451), count them among the saints.

Childhood and learning

Their father was a Greek and a pagan, their mother a Christian named Theodotia. They lost their father early, but this turned out for their good, for their mother could attend more freely to the raising of the children. Resolved to remain a widow all her life, she fulfilled the Christian law with zeal and cared only to please the Lord. From childhood she put into their souls the fear of God and the love of virtue. When they grew up, she gave them to be taught letters by a God-⁠fearing man. There the chief study was Scripture, but they, moved by love for suffering humanity, also learned the science of medicine, learning the healing properties of herbs and plants.

The healings

The Lord blessed their good intention and gave them the grace of healings and of working wonders. Illnesses ceased as soon as Cosmas and Damian began to heal. The blind, the lame, the paralysed and the possessed surrounded them. But the saints were not burdened, and in fact sought out the sick themselves, going from city to city and village to village, and gave healing to all, without distinction of sex, age or station. They did not do this to grow rich or famous, but to serve the suffering for God's sake. For this reason they never took any reward from anyone. They asked only of those healed that they believe firmly in Christ and live holily in Him, and those not yet enlightened they brought to the Christian faith. So, healing the illnesses of the body, they healed those of the soul as well. They healed also dumb animals: in a deserted place they found a camel barely alive, struck by the devil, healed it and let it go healthy to its place.

The brothers never parted. They had made a vow to take nothing from anyone, and each guarded against the other's taking anything in secret from the healed. Only at the end did the Lord allow one of them to break it. There was a woman, Palladia, who had suffered for many years from a grave illness. Hearing of the holy physicians, she called them to her, and they healed her. She wished to give them all her property, but they accepted nothing. Then she chose to ask Damian, in the Name of God, to accept from her three eggs, in the Name of the Holy Trinity. He refused for a long time, but accepted for the sake of the woman's oath.

The end and the wonders

Cosmas learned of it and was greatly grieved, and left an order that Damian's body should not be buried beside his own, as that of one who had broken the vow. That same night the Lord appeared to Cosmas, telling him that the three eggs were not taken as payment, but for the woman's oath in His Name. Cosmas was comforted, but told no one. After many signs and wonders, he reposed in peace. Soon after him Damian also fell asleep. The people who honoured their memory stood perplexed where to lay him. Then a camel came to them and suddenly spoke: it was the one the saints had healed, and it revealed Cosmas's secret, so that they might be laid together. The people thanked the Lord and placed the relics in one coffin, in the place called Pheremann, later destroyed by the Turks. Soon, on the place of their burial, a beautiful church was built, where the sick ran from near and far countries. Their biographer says that it would be easier to measure the sea and count the stars than to tell their wonders, and he described twelve.

The wife of Malchus had been left by her husband, who set out on a long journey, under the protection of the saints, until she should receive a sign from him. The devil, in the form of an acquaintance, showed her the sign and charmed her into leaving, but in the wilderness he threw her from her donkey and wished to kill her. She cried out calling on the saints, and two horsemen rescued her and took her home; they told her they were Cosmas and Damian and vanished. A young man who had lost his mind from fright was healed after his father prayed. A man sick in the lungs, who blasphemed, was healed when he promised not to blaspheme and to abstain from meat for a year. A woman who was mute and deaf sang the Trisagion in their church. A Hellene, a worshipper of Castor and Pollux, gravely ill, came to believe and was baptised after he was healed. A lover of spectacles, with a disease of the chest, was healed after he drank, in obedience, three cups of pitch, as the saints commanded. In Russia, Saints Cosmas and Damian of Asia are regarded as protectors of children at the start of learning their letters.