Память преподобного отца нашего Прокопия Декаполита, Исповедника

The country of Decapolis, which takes its name from the ten cities located in it, is located by the Sea of ​​Galilee; The holy Evangelist Mark mentions this country, saying: “Jesus again went to the Sea of ​​Galilee through the borders of the Decapolis” 1656 (Mark 7:31). The Monk Procopius the Confessor was from this country. Experienced in monastic deeds, tested in strict fasting, adorned with spiritual purity, he was famous and famous among ascetics. At that time, difficult times had come for the iconoclastic heresy; Its first instigator was the lawless Greek king Leo the Isaurian in 1657, who unfairly called holy icons idols and those who worshiped them idolaters. Without mercy, he killed many innocent Orthodox Christians, cursed all the Orthodox kings, saints and Christians who had come before him, as those who revered holy icons, earning a curse from everyone for this. Then the great and unshakable pillar of Orthodoxy and the strong defender of the right faith, the Monk Procopius, stood courageously against the multitude of heretics, who in their wickedness blasphemed the incarnation of God the Word and dishonestly denied the holy icons. He shamed the heretics, denouncing their insane wisdom and overcoming it with invincible God-inspired words; As if the web had been torn apart by the Monk Procopius, their cunning verbal weavings had been torn apart. By this he incurred the wrath of the godless king, who, like a wild lion emerging from the desert, roared, looking for prey. On his orders, the monk was seized and severely beaten; the tormentors whittled his body with iron tools, and then they threw him into a dark and stinking prison. But the saint firmly endured all the suffering. The Monk Basil, who had previously labored together with Procopius in fasting and virtue, also suffered with him. Both of them now together endured much torment for the holy icons. Both were imprisoned together and remained there until the death of the godless tormentor. When Leo died, having lost not only temporary, but also future eternal life, Saint Procopius, together with his friend Basil and other saints, was released from prison. He spent the rest of his life in fasting labors, instructing many in virtue and leading to salvation. In venerable old age, he went to Christ God in order to see Him face to face, and not in an icon image, and so that, as a faster and sufferer of Christ, who labored to the point of blood for His holy icon, he could receive a worthy reward for his labors. With the flows of your tears you cultivated the barren, and you brought forth fruit from the depths with sighs of a hundred labors, and you were a lamp of the universe, shining miracles, Our Father Procopius: pray to Christ God that our souls may be saved. Today the Church possesses the morning sun, dispels all slander and darkness, venerating you as a heavenly mystery, the most glorious Procopius. Decapolis is a decapolis, region or district on the other side of the Jordan, extending in the north to Damascus, in the south to Philadelphia, in the west to Scythopolis and in the east to Kanatha. Here lay ten cities, inhabited mainly by pagans, among whom, however, there were many Jews. Reigned from 717 to 741. You might be interested in: