LIVES OF THE SAINTS

Saintly champion and healer

Apolytikion of St. Panteleimon

St. Panteleimon

Saint Panteleimon was given two names in his life. His parents named him Pantoleon, which means "in all things a lion." The Church baptized him Panteleimon, "all-merciful." He grew from the first name into the second.

Panteleimon was a physician in Nicomedia, a seat of imperial power in Asia Minor, at the turn of the fourth century, when being a Christian could still cost a person his life. He was born to a pagan father and a Christian mother (Saint Euboula), but he lost his mother while he was a child, before her faith had fully taken root in him. So, he was raised and schooled as his father wished, in the pagan understanding, then trained in medicine. By early adulthood he was skilled enough to be marked for a place at the imperial court.

He owed his conversion to an old priest named Hermolaus, who was living quietly in Nicomedia through a season of persecution and who began, in conversation, to teach the young doctor that the healing he practiced had a source, and that the source had a name.

Then, Panteleimon came upon a child killed by snakebite and decided to test what he had been told. He prayed over the body and asked that the child should live, in the name of Christ. The child lived, the nearby snake died, and Panteleimon was baptized, and given his new name, soon after. From then on he practiced medicine differently. He still used his training, but he healed, the tradition says, more with grace and invocation of the Lord's name.

He brought his own father to the faith. When his father died he treated the sick of the city, sought out imprisoned Christians to bind their wounds, and made no secret that the cures came in the name of Christ. He never charged for his skill or the healing. This was very unusual in his time, and has set him among Orthodoxy's beloved Unmercenaries. Soon many of the people of Nicomedia turned to Panteleimon to cure them, leaving the other physicians for him.

The other physicians noticed, and reported him for healing Christians. Brought before the emperor Maximian and ordered to sacrifice to pagan idols, Panteleimon refused and confirmed his faith in Christ. For this, he was arrested, extensively and mercilessly tortured, and finally beheaded in the year 305. His composure and steadfastness under this brutality brought many of the pagans who witnessed his death to Christ. In this way he went on healing to the end.

St. Panteleimon's epithet, "all-merciful," is a strong phrase to hang on any person. The Church gave it to Panteleimon because his mercy was total, extended to bodies and souls, to the poor who could not pay and even to the executioner who was ordered to kill him. The hymn of his feast calls him "saintly champion and healer" in the same breath, holding together the lion and the lamb that his two names describe.

His icon shows a young man, beardless, holding a small box of medicines in one hand and a slender spoon in the other. He is often shown with a martyr's cross as well, and in scenes of his life with the snake from the miracle that led to his conversion. He is one of the most beloved saints in the Orthodox world, and you will find his image in many churches. The instruments in his hands invite you to see that he did not stop being a doctor when he became a martyr but carried his vocation all the way to the end. Indeed, in the Greek Church his name is still spoken in the prayers of Holy Unction and the prayers for the sick, as we ask the doctor of Nicomedia to keep at his work.