MYSTAGOGY RESOURCE CENTER: Saint Oikoumenios the Wonderworker, Bishop of Trikki

St. Oikoumenios of Trikki (Feast Day - May 3)

Verses

Although dead I honor the discourses of Oikoumenios,
You were successful in producing great discourses.
On the third of May the body of Oikoumenios was hidden under the earth.

There is a long debate among researchers about Saint Oikoumenios, both about his identity and about when exactly he lived.

According to the prevailing view, Saint Oikoumenios lived at the end of the 10th century. He studied all the Fathers of the Church and emerged as an excellent interpreter of the Holy Scriptures. At the same time, he is said to have wrote Commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles, on the 14 Epistles of Paul, on the 7 Catholic Epistles, and a Commentary on the Apocalypse, though these are disputed to have been the work of another author from Asia Minor from the seventh century. After being appreciated by his contemporaries for his impeccable ethics and his great external education, he qualified for the episcopal throne of Trikki (in Thessaly), which he adorned as a good shepherd and disciple of the Chief Shepherd Christ, and he reposed peacefully around 995 AD.

However, according to a strong and unbroken old local tradition, Saint Oikoumenios lived in the 4th century AD, as is also mentioned in the Encomium written for Oikoumenios in the 14th century AD by the learned Metropolitan Anthony of Larissa, who also composed Divine Services. in his honor.

According to the said Encomium, Saint Oikoumenios came from Cappadocia and was the nephew of Achillios of Larissa (see May 15) and cousin of Reginos, Bishop of Skopelos (see February 25). He followed his spiritual father and teacher Achillios to Larissa and was eventually elected Bishop of Trikki, thus fulfilling his uncle's great desire to see him a hierarch. The two of them took part in the First Ecumenical Synod (325 AD), where they performed a miracle as proof of the correct faith (a stone gushed water). He died full of days and was recognized as a Wonderworker.

The honorable relics of Saint Oikoumenios were kept in a larnax in the Church of the Archangel Michael, which was located inside the fortress of Trikala.

In the village of Chaidemeni of Trikala, there is a church dedicated to Saint Oikoumenios, opposite the Katafygi Hill, where, according to tradition, Saint Oikoumenios retired for peace and spiritual contemplation.

Saint Oikoumenios is venerated in Crete as well, in particular in Kasteli of Kissamos, where a chapel is built on the grounds of the Metropolis of Kissamos and Selinos. The church was founded by the young people of the Ecumenical Camp, which took place in Kasteli in August 1961, with the care and expenses of the late Metropolitan Irenaeus Galanakis. It was onsecrated by him on August 21, 1966, while it was frescoed with money provided by the graduating students of the Metropolis' boarding schools, in 1989, by the painter Nikos Giannakakis. Its fresco decoration presents several interesting elements, such as representations, to the right and left of the entrance, of young men and women from the boarding schools of the Metropolis, as well as representations of the blessed Irenaeus and the painter himself who painted the church.

Apolytikion in Plagal of the Fourth Tone
Luminary of Orthodoxy, support of the Church and teacher, beauty of Hierarchs, invincible defender of theologians, Oikoumenios the Wonderworker, boast of Trikki, preacher of the faith, entreat that all our souls will be saved.