St. Epiphanius is the patron
saint of the Holy Metropolis of Constance and Famagusta, which was
reconstituted in 2007. That is why the village of Liopetri has a beautiful
small church dedicated to this local saint.
The Saint was born into a poor
Jewish peasant family, in the village Visandouk in Palestine in 310 AD. After
the death of his parents at the age of ten, Epiphanius was attracted to
Christianity by two renowned, for their knowledge and their asceticism, monks,
Lucian and Hilarion. Seven days after his baptism, Epiphanius arranged for his
sister to enter a convent; after he himself went to the desert of Palestine.
There he lived close to the most eminent ascetics, exercising and studying the
Holy Scriptures, becoming a role model for his fellow ascetics. His fame and
virtues soon spread, making him Bishop of Constantia in Cyprus in 367 AD, where
he escaped in a miraculous manner, when his ship, which was floating towards
Palestine, due to bad weather, arrived in Cyprus. From this position, Saint
Epiphanius began the evangelisation of his flock, struggling with the warmest
zeal for the preservation and strengthening of orthodox doctrines, fighting
against all heretical beliefs and fallacies of his time. In 381 AD Epiphanius,
along with four other bishops from Cyprus, took part in the Second Ecumenical
Council.
St. Epiphanius died at sea,
returning to Constantia from Constantinople (12 May 403 AD), where he had gone
for a number of ecclesiastical affairs. He had been an ecclesiastical hierarch
for 36 years. His holy relics were transferred to the Byzantine capital by
Emperor Leo VI the Wise.
St Epiphanius was a prolific
writer and a remarkable ecclesiastical writer. He also performed miracles. He
had, for example, healed the daughter of the Persian king from the demon which
tormented her, he resurrected a Persian noble man’s dead child, he expelled the
demon from Callistus (the son of the first Eparch of Rome) and he healed
Emperor Theodosius the Great from paralysis of the lower limbs. St. Epiphanius
is celebrated by the Orthodox Church on the 12th May.
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