Spyridoula: Name Day and Patron Saint

Saint Spyridon was a shepherd on Cyprus at the end of the third century, a married man with children, who spent everything he had on his neighbors and the homeless. God rewarded his mercy with the gift of wonderworking, and he became Bishop of Trimythous while remaining a simple shepherd at heart. At the First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea he confounded the heretics by squeezing a brick into fire, water and dust to show the one God in three Persons. He lent to the poor without records, brought rain to drought-stricken fields, healed the sick and even raised the dead. He reposed in prayer around 348, and his incorrupt relics, brought to Corfu in the fifteenth century, rest there in his own church. Orthodox Christians pray to Saint Spyridon for a home, for help with money and work, and for healing, trusting that he still walks the world, wearing out his slippers in the service of all who call on him.

What the faithful pray for

• a roof over one’s head: finding, buying, selling or renting a home
• help in financial difficulties and the return of debts
• finding work
• justice in legal troubles
• the help of God in business
• healing of illness of body and soul
• rain in drought and fair weather in floods
• faith in the Holy Trinity

Protection

• the poor from want
• families from losing their homes
• flocks and property from thieves
• Corfu, the island that keeps his relics

Miracles

• At the First Ecumenical Council he squeezed a brick: fire shot up, water dripped to the ground and dust remained, showing how three can be one in the Holy Trinity. (source)
• Thieves who broke into his sheepfold found themselves bound by an invisible power; he released them, urged them to honest work and gave them a sheep. (source)
• On Corfu he is called the ‘walking saint’: the silk slippers on his incorrupt relics wear out from his travels to help people and are replaced, and the old slippers are given to churches as holy gifts. (source)

Read the life of St Spyridon the Wonderworker