Hierarch 10th century

Saint Ekoumenios the Wonderworker of Trikala

Also known as Oecumenius · Ecumenius of Trikala

A bishop of Trikala in Thessaly remembered as a learned interpreter of Scripture and a wonderworker.

Feast Day

May 3

Flagged

The dates and identity of Saint Ekoumenios are uncertain. — Sources preserve two irreconcilable traditions — a late-tenth-century bishop of Trikka identified with the commentator Oecumenius, and a fourth-century Cappadocian kinsman of Achilles of Larisa — and modern scholarship redates the commentaries attributed to Oecumenius to the sixth/seventh century in Asia Minor ("Pseudo-Oecumenius"). The anchor row itself notes this disagreement and is flagged for review.

Hymn / Apolytikion Icon gallery Video / Media

Commemorated as

Our Father among the Saints Ekoumenios the Wonderworker, Bishop of Trikka

Life

Saint Ekoumenios (also Oecumenius or Ecumenius) is venerated as a bishop of Trikka — the city now known as Trikala, in Thessaly — who is remembered as a learned interpreter of Scripture and as a wonderworker. His feast is kept on May 3. The tradition surrounding him is unusually tangled: both the dates of his life and his exact identity are disputed, and the synaxarion itself preserves more than one account.

According to the prevailing tradition followed by the Orthodox Church in America's synaxarion, Ekoumenios lived in the late tenth century, around the year 995, and was appointed bishop of Trikka in Thessaly, where he proved himself a faithful archpastor. In this account he was an excellent interpreter of Holy Scripture, credited with commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles, on the fourteen Epistles of Saint Paul, and on the seven Catholic Epistles. A separate and persistent local tradition, however, places him in the fourth century, and modern scholarship complicates the picture further.

Contributions & Legacy

3 contributions Read Hide

A disputed identity

The figure venerated at Trikala has long been identified with Oecumenius, a Greek biblical commentator. He was once widely believed to have been a bishop of Trikka writing about the year 990, which is the dating reflected in the synaxarion's "prevailing opinion." On this view he was a hierarch and a scholar, whose exegetical works on the New Testament earned him lasting renown.

Modern scholarship has unsettled this identification. The commentary on the Apocalypse traditionally ascribed to Oecumenius has been redated by researchers to the late sixth or early seventh century, with its author located in Asia Minor rather than Thessaly; because of the persistent uncertainty, scholars often speak of "Pseudo-Oecumenius." The commentaries on Acts and the Catholic Epistles transmitted under his name in later manuscripts have moreover been found to coincide with the commentaries of Theophylact of Bulgaria. The question of what this Oecumenius actually wrote, and when he lived, remains genuinely difficult to resolve.

The fourth-century tradition

Alongside the tenth-century account, the synaxarion preserves an older local tradition, recorded by Metropolitan Anthony of Larisa in the fourteenth century, which places Ekoumenios in the fourth century. In this account he came from Cappadocia, was the nephew of Saint Achilles of Larisa, and was cousin to Saint Reginos, bishop of Skopelos. By this tradition Ekoumenios and Achilles both took part in the First Ecumenical Council in 325, where they are said to have worked a miracle to confirm the true faith, causing water to gush from a stone. The two datings cannot be reconciled, and the database flags the entry accordingly.

Relics and veneration at Trikala

Whatever his era, Ekoumenios is firmly attached to Trikala in the local cult. His relics were kept in a shrine in the church of the Archangel Michael, within the fortress of Trikala. A church dedicated to him stands in the village of Haidemene, traditionally marking the place to which he withdrew for solitude. In the hymnography of his feast he is praised as a luminary of Orthodoxy, an adornment of hierarchs, a wonderworker, and "the boast of Trikke."

Notes

The OCA entry notes disagreement about his identity and exact dates. Flagged for review.

Sources: OCA Synaxarion (oca.org), Lives of the Saints