Why people ask St Spyridon
Finding a job
The Russian Church’s service for people looking for work, approved in 2023, asks for his prayers and for those of St Nicholas and St Tryphon in its closing words.
His feast days
12 December: His feast in the Orthodox churches on the new calendar. Those on the old calendar keep it on 25 December.
14 December: His feast in the Catholic Church.
Saint Spyridon the Wonderworker, 12 December, Orthodox Church in America; The Roman Martyrology, 1916, 14 December
When it is said
It is the troparion, the short hymn of the day, for St Spyridon’s feast on 12 December. It is sung in the first tone, one of the eight melodies of the Church’s chant.
It speaks to the saint, and ends by giving glory to God, Who works through him.
Where it comes from
No author known
A shepherd made bishop
Spyridon was a shepherd on Cyprus, with a wife and children. He became bishop of Tremithus, a town on the island. The Orthodox Church in America says he took part in the First Ecumenical Council, the first council of bishops from the whole Church, in AD 325. His relics rest today on the island of Corfu, in a church named after him.
Sozomen, Church History, book 1 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers); Orthodox Church in America, St Spyridon the Wonderworker
He spoke to one dead in her grave
The Church historian Sozomen tells this story. A man left something of value in the care of Spyridon’s daughter Irene. She buried it for safety and died without telling anyone. The owner wept. Moved with pity, Spyridon went to her grave and called her by name. She answered and told him where it was, and he gave it back.
Sozomen, Church History, book 1 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers)
He changed a snake into gold
The hymns of his feast say he took pity on a man in need and, by his prayers, changed a snake into gold for him. They add that he had trampled down the love of money. Sozomen agrees: Spyridon gave part of each harvest to the poor and lent another part freely. Borrowers took what they needed from his storehouse.
The Greek Menaion for 12 December (Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America); Sozomen, Church History, book 1 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers)
In Greek
Τῆς Συνόδου τῆς πρώτης ἀνεδείχθης ὑπέρμαχος, καὶ θαυματουργὸς θεοφόρε, Σπυρίδων Πατὴρ ἡμῶν·
διὸ νεκρᾷ σὺ ἐν τάφῳ προσφωνεῖς, καὶ ὄφιν εἰς χρυσοῦν μετέβαλες·
καὶ ἐν τῷ μέλπειν τὰς ἁγίας σου εὐχάς, Ἀγγέλους ἔσχες συλλειτουργοῦντάς σοι Ἱερώτατε·
Δόξα τῷ σὲ δοξάσαντι, δόξα τῷ σὲ στεφανώσαντι·
δόξα τῷ ἐνεργοῦντι διὰ σοῦ πᾶσιν ἰάματα.