ST APOLLINARIS SYNCLETICA, VIRGIN - 5 JANUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY

Saints celebrated on the 5th of January

WELCOME!

SAINT APOLLINARIS SYNCLETICA, VIRGIN 

Saint Apollinaris is also called Syncletika (from a senatorial family) because her father is definitely known to have had a high dignity in the state. She is also called Dorotheus because she put on a monk's habit, as will be explained further on, and this name was given to her by God. 

She was one of the many women who, in order to protect themselves from danger to her chastity or the better to serve God in seclusion, exchanged their feminine clothes for men's attire, which was all the more easily done in the Orient, since the feminine clothes are not very different from the masculine ones.

Though church writers generally portray it as an abomination and despicable of God when the sexes change their clothes, they do excuse it in such exceptional cases, if it was done with the good intention either to avoid a grave danger or to be able to serve God all the more zealously and undisturbed.

SHE RECEIVES INSTRUCTION

Saint Apollinaris took great joy in her spiritual position, which is why she refused the marriage proposed by her parents and asked a nun (Monacha) to teach her to read and to instruct her in the godly life. 

THE PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND

Some time afterwards, with the consent of her parents, she travelled to Jerusalem, accompanied by many servants, to visit the holy places, and from there went to Alexandria in Egypt, where she bought a monk's habit, dismissed all her servants except for a eunuch and an old man, distributed her belongings, and then shipped off with them. 

THE ESCAPE

When she got ashore, she put on her monk's habit while her two companions slept and fled from that place. She stayed for a while near a well, where she received the name Dorotheus from God who appeared to her. Finally she was taken by St Macarius into a cell not far from the monastery at Scethin.

HER SISTER'S RECOVERY

When her sister, who was still with her parents, was molested by Satan and on the advice of pious men took refuge in the desert with the holy fathers, she was put in the cell of St Apollinaris (Dorotheus) and was healed by her. 

SHE REVEALED HERSELF TO HER PARENTS

But Satan took vengeance on our saints and brought up the charge of seducing the healed sister. Thereupon St Apollinaris went to her parents, revealed herself to them, and returned to her cell. After a holy life, she died there at the beginning of the 5th century. Apollinaris' name can be found in the Roman Martyrology on this day - incidentally on the same day as a Saint Syncletica has her feast day. The latter is venerated in Alexandria; her deeds have been written down for posterity by St Athanasius. But that Syncletica is a different saint altogether.

Information from Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints, 1858

PRAYER:

Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that the venerable feast of Saint Apollinaris Syncletica may increase our devotion and promote our salvation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.