Feast day: July 27
St. Pantaleon
A physician to the Roman emperor, raised a Christian, who fell away into court life, returned to his faith, treated the poor without charge, and was martyred under Diocletian.
Pantaleon — whose name was later given the form Panteleimon, 'the all-compassionate' — was, according to his legend, a physician of Nicomedia in Asia Minor at the turn of the fourth century, and is venerated as one of the great martyrs of the Eastern Church and one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers in the West.
The story tells that he was the son of a pagan father and a Christian mother, and that after his mother's death he drifted from the faith while studying medicine, rising to become physician to the emperor himself. A Christian priest named Hermolaus won him back, and Pantaleon began to practise his art in a new spirit, healing the sick freely and without payment for the love of Christ.
Denounced as a Christian during the persecution of Diocletian, he openly confessed his faith and, the legend says, proved the power of Christ by healing a paralyzed man. He was condemned to death, and his execution is wrapped in miraculous detail — fire, beasts, and blades that would not harm him — until at last, at his own prayer, he was beheaded.
His blood, kept as a relic, is said even now to liquefy on his feast day. As the doctor who gave his services freely and died for his faith, Pantaleon became, with Sts. Cosmas and Damian, one of the great patron saints of physicians.
He treated the sick for free as a 'silver-less' physician, and became one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers and a patron of doctors and midwives.
Image: Classical Numismatic Group;[1] (CC BY-SA 3.0), via Wikimedia Commons.
Source: newadvent.org/cathen/11447a.htm
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