Saint Phocas
Patronage | gardeners; market-gardeners; hospitality; agricultural workers; farmers; fieldhands; husbandmen; sailors; mariners; watermen |
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Phocas, sometimes called Phocas the Gardener (
Life
Catholic tradition states that he was a gardener who lived at Sinope, on the Black Sea, who used his crops to feed the poor and aided persecuted Christians.[3] During the persecutions of Diocletian, he provided hospitality to the soldiers who were sent to execute him. The soldiers, not knowing that their host was their intended victim, agreed to his hospitality. Phocas also offered to help them find the person they were seeking.[4]
As the soldiers slept, Phocas dug his own grave and prayed. He made arrangements for all his possessions to be distributed to the poor after his death.[3] In the morning, when the soldiers awoke, Phocas revealed his identity.
The soldiers hesitated and offered to report to their commander that their search had been fruitless. Phocas refused this offer and bared his neck. He was then decapitated and buried in the grave that he had dug for himself.[3]
Veneration
He is mentioned by
Phocas is mentioned in W. H. Auden's poem Horae Canonicae, Sext I, verse 6, 2nd line.[citation needed]
Other gardener saints
Notes
- ^ His date of death is sometimes given as 117 AD, and that he was killed during the reign of Trajan.
- ^ Phocas of Sinope – The Oxford Dictionary of Saints – HighBeam Research
- ^ a b c "Martyr Phocas the Gardener of Sinope", Orthodox Church in America
- ^ “1 July“. A Year with the Saints, 1891. CatholicSaints.Info. 7 November 2019 This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- ISBN 0-415-13282-7.
External links
- "St. Phocas, Gardener, Martyr", Butler's Lives of the Saints
- Patron Saints Index: St Phocas
- Saint Phocas
- (in Italian) San Foca l'Ortolano