Meletius Pegas

Holy Hierarch Meletius Pegas, Patriarch of Alexandria, was born in 1549 on the island of Crete. He studied at Venice and Padua, then took the monastic habit in his homeland and opened a school of ancient Greek at the monastery, which became widely famous. Later he was abbot of that monastery and Metropolitan of Cyrene.

In the years when Patriarch Silvester shepherded Alexandria, Meletius was secretary of the patriarchate, and in 1590 he was elected patriarch. As soon as he took the throne he faced the huge debt of the patriarchate to the sultan, and the proselytism of the Jesuits, against which he took a firm stand. He also worked for the reunion of the Copts of Egypt and Abyssinia with the Orthodox Church.

He spent his life in struggle against the papacy and the union then in preparation. He gave many sermons and instructions, gathered in a volume of homilies called the Stromata. At the Council of Constantinople in 1593 he did much to establish the patriarchate in Moscow and for a time he was locum tenens of the Ecumenical patriarchal throne. He took an especially warm part in the affairs of Orthodoxy in Western Rus and Poland, to which he addressed most of his letters and epistles. He urged many to remain steadfast in Orthodoxy, among them the princes Ostrozhsky, Vishnevetsky and Chetvertinsky, the Polish king Sigismund III and the brotherhoods of Western Rus. Concerning the patriarchate at Moscow he wrote to Tsar Feodor Ioannovich, to Boris Godunov and to Patriarch Job. Among his writings an epistle on Pascha survives, and one to the Orthodox of Rohatyn, consoling them in their persecutions.

He reposed in 1601, at the age of fifty-⁠two. The Orthodox Church of Alexandria glorified him, and by decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church of 7 May 2003 his memory was entered in the diptych of the saints. He is commemorated on 26 October, in the new style.