Saint Panteleimon the Great Martyr and Unmercenary Healer
Physician, Great Martyr, Unmercenary Healer
- Feast day
- July 27
- Lived
- c. 275–305
- Patronage
- Doctors, the sick, hospitals; principal healer-saint of Orthodoxy
Saint Panteleimon — 'all-merciful' — was the personal physician of the Emperor Maximian who treated the poor without payment and was martyred for it. He is the great healing saint of the Orthodox Church, invoked at every service of Holy Unction.
Life
Born Pantoleon in Nicomedia to a pagan father and a Christian mother who died when he was young, he was trained in medicine by the famous physician Euphrosynus. The priest Hermolaus instructed him in the faith, and he was converted decisively after raising a child killed by a viper by calling on Christ.
He healed a blind man whom no physician could help, converting both the patient and his own father. Denounced by jealous colleagues during Diocletian's persecution, he refused to sacrifice, was tortured by every means the prefect could devise, and was beheaded — the olive tree he was bound to bursting into fruit at the moment of his death.
Veneration
His relics are distributed widely, with his head kept at the Russian monastery of Saint Panteleimon on Mount Athos. In the Orthodox rite of Holy Unction his name is invoked among the unmercenary healers, and his icon, holding a medicine box and spoon, hangs in Orthodox hospitals and clinics worldwide.
When Saint Panteleimon the Great Martyr and Unmercenary Healer is commemorated
The feast falls on July 27 on the Revised Julian (New) calendar used by most Greek, Antiochian and Romanian parishes. Parishes that keep the Julian (Old) calendar — much of the Russian, Serbian and Georgian Churches, and Mount Athos — celebrate it on the civil date August 9, thirteen days later. You can switch between both reckonings anywhere on this site.
See the full liturgical day for July 27, 2027
That page gives the fasting rule in force, the Epistle and Gospel appointed for the day, and every other saint commemorated alongside Saint Panteleimon the Great Martyr and Unmercenary Healer. To keep the feast, look for a parish in the USA, Canada or Australia directory, and read the Akathist hymns appointed for private prayer.
Other saints commemorated in July
- John of Shanghai and San FranciscoJuly 2
- Macrina the YoungerJuly 19
- Mary MagdaleneJuly 22
- Paisios of Mount AthosJuly 12
- ParaskeviJuly 26
- Vladimir of KievJuly 15