Euthymius of Sardis

Saint Euthymius of Sardis, Hieromartyr, metropolitan of Sardis, was a great defender of the holy icons in the time of iconoclasm and died a martyr in the year 831. He is remembered on 26 December and on 8 March.

Life before exile

He was born in 751 or 754 at Ouzara, probably in Lycaonia in Asia Minor. As a young man he entered monasticism, and between 784 and 787 he was ordained metropolitan of Sardis by Patriarch Tarasios of Constantinople. In 787 he took part in the Seventh Ecumenical Council, which restored the veneration of icons, in which he played a leading role: he spoke in several sessions, urging the reinstatement of the exiled bishops, Theodore of Amorium and Basil of Ancyra, the restoration of the traditional veneration of icons as proposed by Tarasios and Pope Hadrian I, and the anathematizing of iconoclasm and its supporters; at the third session he anathematized the iconoclasts with other hierarchs, at the fourth he was entrusted to read the testimonies of the holy Fathers in favour of the veneration of icons, and at the seventh he signed its decisions. According to the life written by Patriarch Methodios, in the time of the empress Irene he took part in an embassy to the court of the caliph at Baghdad, but such an embassy is not attested in other sources.

Under the emperor Nikephoros I he fell into disfavour, accused of supporting the rebellion of the general Bardanes Tourkos, and at the end of 803 or the beginning of 804 he was deposed and exiled, with other bishops, to the island of Pantelleria. According to his life, Nikephoros' animosity arose because Euthymius had persuaded a woman whom the future emperor desired to become a nun. Through the intervention of Patriarch Tarasios he was soon recalled from exile, but was not reinstated in his see, and lived in retirement in the theme of Opsikion. At Christmas 814 he was at an audience with the emperor Leo V, where with other hierarchs he opposed the emperor's intention to hold a debate between iconophiles and iconoclasts. Two months earlier the iconoclasts John Grammatikos and Antony of Syllaion had tried to persuade him to join their side, promising him the patriarchate.

Persecution and martyrdom

When iconoclasm was once more adopted as official doctrine under Leo V the Armenian (813-820) and Michael II the Amorian (820-829), Euthymius again defended the veneration of icons, for which he was arrested, whipped, exiled, then released only to be arrested again and exiled again. He was persecuted especially by the future patriarch John Grammatikos. After the start of the second period of iconoclasm, in 815, he was sent to the island of Thasos; in 821 Michael II recalled him from exile and summoned him to an audience with other bishops, where Euthymius sharply rejected the proposal of a compromise with the iconoclasts.

The traditional chronology of his death, in the Byzantine chroniclers Genesios, John Skylitzes and Theophanes Continuatus, is 26 December 824, when he was whipped to death at the orders of Michael II. Modern research, however, places it on 26 December 831 on the island of Saint Andrew, north of Cape Akritas on the Bithynian coast, during the reign of Theophilos. According to the Life of Saints David, Symeon and George of Mytilene, on the island he was subjected to a cruel interrogation by a certain Kosmas and died eight days later of the torments. According to Dimitry of Rostov, “they stretched him on four posts and beat him with oxhide thongs, so that his body was covered with many wounds and swelled.” The Serbian source says that he was stretched between four posts and beaten long with oxhide thongs until he swelled from the beating, and died after seven days. According to Nicodemus the Hagiorite, his relics are at Anchialos (today Pomorie in Bulgaria).

His life was written by Patriarch Methodios I. Several letters of Theodore of Stoudios to Euthymius also survive, and a panegyric poem in his honour, written by a certain Metrophanes. He wrote a treatise “On the Election of Bishops.” He is portrayed as an old man with a beard like that of Saint Athanasius, in episcopal vestments, with the omophorion and the Gospel.