Methodius of Olympus

Saint Methodius, hieromartyr, was bishop of Olympus in Lycia and one of the notable church writers of the late third and early fourth centuries. He defended the Church's teaching on the resurrection and received the crown of martyrdom around the year 311.

Little is known for certain about his life. He was a bishop in Lycia in Asia Minor, and tradition also links him with the city of Patara. He was a learned man, versed in Greek philosophy, which he placed at the service of the faith.

His best known work is the Banquet of the Ten Virgins, a dialogue in which ten virgins in turn praise chastity and virginity offered to Christ. The work closes with a hymn sung by Saint Thecla, in which the virgins go out to meet the Bridegroom.

In his work On the Resurrection he rejected Origen's view that the risen body would not be the same as our present body. Methodius confessed that this very body will rise, transformed and incorruptible. He also wrote on free will, showing that evil comes not from God but from the will of the creature, and other works that survive in part.

According to Blessed Jerome, he received the crown of martyrdom at Chalcis, during the last persecutions against the Christians. He is commemorated on 20 June.