Venerable Prokopios the Confessor of Decapolis

Commemorated on February 27.

Saint Prokopios lived during the VIII century in the region of Dekapolis, east of the Sea of Galilee. Forsaking the vainity of this world, Prokopios was tonsured in a certain monastery, where he labored for his salvation, devoting himself to a life of prayer and fasting. As he grew experienced in ascetical labors, he was adorned with virtue and purity of soul, so that other ascetics began to notice him. Meanwhile, about this time, the heresy of iconoclasm appeared. Prokopios was distressed by the policies of the wicked Emperor Leo the Isaurian, who regarded the Holy Icons as idols, and those who venerated them as idolaters.

The righteous Prokopios, together with other zealots of Orthodoxy, fought against the wicked heresy of the iconoclasts. He refuted their mindless madness and defeated them by declaring that Orthodox Christians do not worship icons, we venerate them, and that veneration passes to the original prototype. This brought upon him the wrath and disfavor of the Emperor. At his command, Saint Prokopios was arrested and subjected to cruel torments: he was flogged, beaten with rods, and raked with iron claws, and then was thrown into a dank dungeon. There Saint Prokopios and Saint Basil (February 28), his co-struggler in the monastic liife, languished until the death of Emperor Leo, when the Holy Confessors were released.

Saint Prokopios the Decapolite spent the remainder of his life in peace, guiding many on the path of virtue and salvation. He reposed at an advanced age, around the year 750.