Feast day: February 26

St. Porphyry of Gaza

Bishop · c. 347–420

Patron of —

A former hermit made bishop of stubbornly pagan Gaza, where he patiently won the city to the faith and replaced its great temple with a Christian church.

Porphyry was born about 347, probably at Thessalonica, and as a young man gave up his wealth to live as a monk in the Egyptian desert and then near the Jordan. Around 392 he was ordained a priest at Jerusalem and entrusted with the relic of the True Cross; a few years later, much against his will, he was made bishop of Gaza.

Gaza was then one of the last great strongholds of paganism in the Holy Land, its small Christian community surrounded and harassed by a hostile majority devoted to the temple of the god Marnas. Much of what we know of Porphyry comes from a vivid biography by his deacon Mark, which describes his long struggle there.

Twice Porphyry travelled to Constantinople to appeal to the imperial court, and at last, with the help of the empress, obtained an order for the closing and destruction of the pagan temples of Gaza. On the site of the great temple of Marnas a Christian church was raised.

He governed his difficult see for some twenty-five years, patient amid continual opposition, and died about 420. He is honoured as a model of the missionary bishop labouring in a hostile land.

He governed one of the last strongly pagan cities of the empire and, after years of patience, saw it become Christian in his own lifetime.

Image: artist unknown (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.

Source: newadvent.org/cathen/12282c.htm