ST METHODIUS I. - 14 JUNE

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JUNE

Saints celebrated on the 14th of June

Prayer to the Angels and the Saints

Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.

In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.

Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.

Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

ST METHODIUS I., PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE

Saint Methodius was a Sicilian of high birth, and very learned. Forsaking the world, he built a monastery in the island of Chio, but was afterwards called to Constantinople by the patriarch St Nicephorus, whom he accompanied in his two banishments, under the Iconoclast emperor, Leo the Armenian. 

THE SPELL IN PRISON

In 817 he was sent by that patriarch Apocrisiarius or Nuncio to Rome. Upon the news of the death of St Nicephorus, he returned to Constantinople; but was thrown into prison by the heretical emperor Michael the Stammerer, where he remained till the end of his reign. 

In 830 he was released by the Catholic empress Theodora, but soon after banished by her impious husband Theophilus. That prince dying in 842, Theodora became regent for her son Michael III, and placed Methodius in the patriarchal chair of Constantinople. 

HE WAS PLACED IN THE PATRIARCHAL CHAIR OF CONSTANTINOPLE

He purged that church of heresy, and instituted an annual feast of thanksgiving. Having filled that see four years, he died of a dropsy on June 14, 846. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)