Longinus the Stylite

Venerable Longinus the Stylite was an assistant of Saint Theophilus the Confessor and accompanied him to Nicaea, where he too endured many tortures. In one of them they laid him on his back and placed on his head the holy icons he carried with him and burned them.

Saint Theophilus the Confessor came from a village near Tiberiopolis and was raised in the right faith. In his youth he visited the monk Stephen, who widened his spiritual and intellectual horizons. With the help of his pious parents, he built a monastery on Mount Selention, where he became a monk. In the time of the emperor Leo the Isaurian, who fought against Orthodoxy, Theophilus judged that he must be at the centre of the struggle, and leaving his hermitage he began to preach for Orthodoxy. For this he was imprisoned at Nicaea and pressed with beatings and other tortures to deny his faith. With the flame of faith unquenched, he endured the punishment of beating with rods. Bearing the honourable marks of martyrdom, he returned to his monastery, where he was received with honour, then withdrew to his hermitage and gave up his spirit to the Lord. Longinus is commemorated on 10 October, in the calendar of the Church of Greece (new style), together with Theophilus and Bassian.