Saint of the Day – 25 March – Saint Pelagius (4th Century) Bishop of Laodicea, today Lataquieli) in Syria where he was born. Being married at a young age, possibly by arrangement, both he and his wife chose a life of total chastity. Pelagius was an icon of virtue and a virulent defender of the One True Faith against the Arians, suffering much persecution for his determined protection of the Church of Christ.
The Roman Martyrology reads today: “At Laodicea, St Pelagius, Bishop, who having endured exile and other afflictions for the True Catholic Faith, under Valens, rested in the Lord.”
The information on the life of St Pelagius, an exemplary Bishop and staunch defender of the Nicene Faith, emerges from the pages of St Theodoret of Cyrus’s Ecclesiastical History, offering a fascinating glimpse into Ecclesial life in the 4th Century.
He was originally from Syria, married very young,but, on the same day of the wedding, obtained from his bride the consent to a life of perfect chastity.
In 360, faced with the example of virtue the couple offered to the Christians of Laodicea, they chose Pelagius as their Bishop. He received Episcopal Consecration from the hands of Acacius of Caesarea in Palestine.
In 363 he attended the Council of Antioch, where he was an ardent defender of the Nicene faith against the Arians and signed the profession of faith in which the term “consubstantial” was included.
Pelagius was also participatent at the Synod of Tyana (367). The Emperor Valens, having adhered to the Arian heresy, deprived the orthodox Bishops of their Sees and Pelagius, included among them, was exiled to Arabia.
In 378, after the death of Valens, Gratian ascended the Imperial throne and Pelagius was able to regain his office. He subsequently sided with the Bishops who favoured the election of St Gregory Nazianzus in Constantinople.
Finally, in 381, Pelagius appears at the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople. The date of his death is unknown.
AnaStpaul 