Saint Alexis the Man of God
Ascetic of Rome and Edessa
- Feast day
- March 17
- Lived
- d. 411
- Patronage
- Beggars, pilgrims, those who embrace hidden poverty
The son of a Roman senator who left on his wedding night to live as a beggar, Saint Alexis spent his last seventeen years unrecognised under the staircase of his own family's house.
Life
Alexis, only child of the wealthy Euphemianus, left Rome on the day of his marriage, giving his bride back her ring, and sailed east. He lived seventeen years as a beggar at the church of the Theotokos in Edessa, giving away whatever alms exceeded his bread.
When his holiness began to be recognised he fled again, and contrary winds carried the ship to Rome. Unrecognised, he asked shelter of his own father as a poor pilgrim and was given a corner beneath the stairs, where he lived another seventeen years, mocked by the servants, hearing his mother and wife grieve for him daily.
Discovery
He was found dead holding a written account of his life, at the hour when a voice in the churches of Rome called for the Man of God. His story spread across both East and West and remains one of the most widely told lives of a lay ascetic.