Venerable Procopius the Decapolite

Life

This saint was from the Decapolis, the region of ten cities around the Sea of Galilee, on account of which he was called the Decapolite. In his youth he gave himself to the ascetic life and passed through all the prescribed labors by which the heart is cleansed and the spirit raised up toward God. But when the persecution of icons began under the wicked Emperor Leo the Isaurian, Procopius arose in defense of the icons, demonstrating that the veneration of icons is not idolatry, for Christians know that in bowing before icons they are not bowing to dead matter but to the living saints who are depicted upon the icons. For this Procopius was savagely tortured, imprisoned, beaten, and scraped with iron. When the wicked Emperor Leo was slain in body, having perished in soul earlier, the icons were restored to the churches and Procopius returned to his monastery, where he spent his remaining days in peace. In old age he departed to the Kingdom of God, where with joy he beholds the living angels and saints whose likenesses on icons he had venerated on earth. He reposed peacefully in the ninth century.

From the Hymn of Praise

### ON FORGIVENESS