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Apolytikion:
First Tone
O
Father, God-bearer, Spyridon, you were proven a champion and Wonder Worker of the First Ecumenical Council. You spoke to the
girl in the grave and turned the serpent to gold. And, when chanting your prayers, most sacred One, angels ministered with
you. Glory to Him who glorified you; glory to Him who crowned you; glory to Him who, through you, works healing for all.
Kontakion:
Second Tone
Wounded
by your love for Christ, O holy One, your mind given wings by the radiance of the spirit, you put the practice of theory into
deeds, becoming a sacred altar, O Chosen by God, and praying for the divine illumination of all.
St. Spyridon's Life:
Spyridon, the God-bearing Father of the Church, the great
defender of Corfu and the boast of all the Orthodox, had Cyprus as his homeland. He was simple in manner and humble of heart,
and was a shepherd of sheep. When he was joined to a wife, he begat of her a daughter whom they named Irene. After his wife's
departure from this life, he was appointed Bishop of Trimythus, and thus he became also a shepherd of rational sheep. When
the First Ecumenical Council was assembled in Nicaea, he also was present, and by means of his most simple words stopped the
mouths of the Arians who were wise in their own conceit. By the divine grace which dwelt in him, he wrought such great wonders
that he received the surname 'Wonderworker." So it is that, having tended his flock piously and in a manner pleasing to God,
he imposed in the Lord about the year 350, leaving to his country his sacred relics as a consolation and source of healing
for the faithful.
About the middle of the
seventh century, because of the incursions made by the barbarians at that time, his sacred relics were taken to Constantinople,
where they remained, being honoured by the emperors themselves;. But before the fall Of Constantinople, which took place on
May 29, 1453, a certain priest named George Kalokhairetes, the parish priest of the church where the Saint's sacred relics,
as well as those of Saint Theodora the Empress, were kept, took them away on account of the impending peril. Travelling by
way of Serbia, he came as far as Ana in Epirus, a region in Western Greece opposite to the isle of Corfu. From there, while
the misfortunes of the Christian people were increasing with every day, he passed over to Corfu about the year 1460 The relics
of Saint Theodora were given to the people of Corfu; but those of Saint Spyridon remain to this day, according In the rights
of inheritance, the most precious treasure of the priest's own descendants, and they continue to be a staff for the faithful
in Orthodoxy, and a supernatural wonder for those char behold him; for even after the passage of 1,500 years, they have remained
incorrupt, and even the flexibility of his flesh has been preserved. Truly wondrous is God in His Saints! (Ps. 67:3 5)
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