Holy Martyr Athanasios Who Was a Sorcerer, Converted by Saint George

St. Athanasios the Martyr (Feast Day - April 23)

Verses

Athanasios the sorcerer was beheaded,
The ailing soul found a strange medicine.

During the trials of the Holy Great Martyr George, Dadianus the governor wrote a letter in which he thus said, "I write to the whole world, greetings. Let any sorcerer or magician who can put an end to the magic of this Christian come here to me, and I will give him much wealth and any territory that he shall ask for, and he shall be second in the kingdom."Saint George had miraculously emerged unharmed from his tortures by divine grace, and because of his miracles the stubborn pagans believed he was a magician, and only another magician could defeat him.

Saints Raphael, Nicholas and Irene and the Exorcism of Theodora in the Year 2000

By Athena Peglidou

Department of History, Archaeology, and Social Anthropology, 

University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece

During the winter of 2000, Theodora, thirty-eight, a housewife and mother of a thirteen year-old daughter, having undergone psychiatric observation for four years, and been diagnosed as suffering from depression, finally decided to have herself exorcized. It was her confessor, whom she had consulted for five years, who suggested it. During her treatment — it was a difficult case — the priest contacted the abbess of the Saint Raphaël convent on Mytilene, an important center of pilgrimage, in order to ask her to pray for Theodora. The abbess soon came to the conclusion that the convent’s three saints (Saint Raphael, Saint Nicholas, and Saint Irene) could help to cure her soul. The personal diary kept by Theodora, to which she gave me access, was a particularly interesting document as far as following the conflict between the different treatments as she experienced them was concerned. Her husband, Giorgos, always accompanied her to the Mytilene convent.

Saint George and the Powers of Witches and Vampires

“It is the eve of St. George’s Day. Do you not know that tonight, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway? Do you know where you are going, and what you are going to?”

―Bram Stoker, Dracula 1897

Today is the Eve of the Feast of Saint George! Which means that if you are still alive after tonight, you survived what is known in Eastern Europe as the most dangerous night of the year, as the powers of vampires and witches and every evil were at their height on the Eve of the Feast of Saint George.

The Bones of a Dragon Killed by Saint Donatos in the Fourth Century

The following account was written concerning Saint Donatos (Apr. 30), a late fourth century bishop from Albania, by the fifth century historian Sozomen (Eccl. Hist., Bk. 7, Ch. 26):

"There were at this period many other bishops in various parts of the empire highly celebrated for their sanctity and high qualifications, of whom Donatos, Bishop of Euroea in Epirus, deserves to be particularly mentioned. The inhabitants of the country relate many extraordinary miracles which he performed, of which the most celebrated seems to have been the destruction of a dragon of enormous size. It had stationed itself on the high road, at a place called Chamaegephyrae and devoured sheep, goats, oxen, horses, and men. Donatos came upon this beast, attacked it unarmed, without sword, lance, or javelin; it raised its head, and was about to dash upon him, when Donatos made the sign of the cross with his finger in the air, and spat upon the dragon. The saliva entered its mouth, and it immediately expired. As it lay extended on the earth it did not appear inferior in size to the noted serpents of India. I have been informed that the people of the country yoked eight pair of oxen to transport the body to a neighboring field, where they burnt it, that it might not during the process of decomposition corrupt the air and generate disease... The inhabitants of Isoria, a village in the territory of Euroea, bear testimony to the truth of this narration."