Theophanes the Confessor

Holy Venerable Theophanes the Confessor, called also the Faster, was born into a pagan family and died in peace around the year 300, after enduring torments for Christ in the time of the emperors Carus and Carinus.

While still young, Theophanes believed in Christ and was baptized, and then secretly left his pagan parents for Mount Davis, to an old hermit who had laboured there for seventy-⁠five years. The old man taught the boy the reading of holy books and the rules of monastic life. After five years the old man died, and Theophanes remained alone in his cave for fifty-⁠eight years.

Then he came down from the mountain and began to preach faith in Christ among the pagans, bringing many of them to Christianity. By command of the Roman emperors Carus (282-283) and his sons Numerian and Carinus (283-284), he was seized and subjected to tortures. The confessor bore the sufferings bravely and was left alive. He returned to the mountain, where he lived seventeen more years and departed in peace to the Lord, around the year 300.

The Church commemorates him on 22 September.