Porphyry (347–420)

Biography

“He was about thirty years old when I met him,” writes Mark the Deacon, who lived with him for many years. "As he suffered from an incurable tumor in his liver, Porphyry left his anchorite grotto to go to die in Jerusalem. I lived there for love of the Holy Places. One day as I was on my way to the Holy Sepulchre, I met a monk bent over, skeletal, with a bilious tinge, who, leaning on a staff, was climbing the stairs of the atrium with difficulty. I offered him my arm to help him, and from then on I became his disciple forever... Shortly afterward he sent for me What was my surprise when, having left him so ill, I found him on my return in splendid health! He confided to me that during an ecstasy on Calvary, Christ had appeared to him accompanied by the Good Thief and that, by order of the Master, Porphyry had been ordained a priest and in the year 396 he was appointed bishop of Gaza, a city that had remained pagan and in which it was harshly persecuted. the Christians. Porphyry decided to appear before the imperial court to ask for help and we were before the Empress Euxodia who was pregnant at the time. “God will give you a man,” the bishop told her. “If this happens, I will do whatever you want,” she replied, and shortly after the little prince's baptism, she sent us soldiers to Gaza with orders to destroy the eight temples that were there, where churches were being built.” Porphyry died, after twenty-four years of episcopate, and after having converted the majority of the pagans in the region.