Saint
Sophronius of Jerusalem
March 11th
Troparion (Tone 5)
O Father Sophronios, thou wast glorious in the
splendour of sobriety, and didst reveal thy ineffable
enlightenment from heaven through the radiance of thy words. For
by thy life thou didst attain to wisdom and dost now confirm thy
Church, as an illustrious Hierarch and intercessor for us with
the Lord.
Sophronius was born in Damascus, where he
was well educated. But he thirsted for more spiritual wisdom. In
the monastery of St Theodosius, John Moschus, became his teacher;
then together they visited the ascetics of Egypt. They wrote down
all the wise sayings they heard, and later published them in two
books entitled The Spiritual Meadow. Later they went to
Rome, where Moschus died, leaving Sophronius with the pledge to
take his body either to Sinai or to the Monastery of St
Theodosius. He obeyed and took him to the monastery. Sophronius
remained in Jerusalem where he witnessed the return of the
Precious Cross from Persia, which the Emperor Heraclius carried
into the Holy City on his back. Patriarch Zacharias returned from
slavery, but did not live long and was followed first by
Modestus, who died in 634, and then by Sophronius. He governed
the Church well for four years, defending Orthodoxy against the
Monothelite heresy, which he condemned at his Council in
Jerusalem before it was condemned at the 6th Ecumenical Council.
He wrote the life of St Mary of Egypt, compiled the rite of the
Great Blessing of Water and introduced various new hymns and
songs into different services. When Caliph Omar captured
Jerusalem, Sophronius begged him to spare the Christians, which
Omar hypocritically promised. When Omar quickly began to plunder
and ill-treat the Christians in Jerusalem, Sophronius, with many
lamentations, begged God to take him home, that he should not see
the desecration of the holy places. God heard his prayer, and
took him to Himself in His heavenly courts in 644.
His scroll reads: "O Gladsome Light of the Holy Golry of the
Immortal Father."
This Icon is by the hand of Constantine Youssis and is at St. John the Baptist Russian Orthodox Church, New Kensington, Pennsylvania. It is one of six hymnographers in the choir loft there.
Order # ynk-09
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