Feastday: July 17
Alexis was the only son of a rich Roman senator. From his good Christian parents, he learned to be charitable to the poor. Alexis wanted to give up his wealth and honors but his parents had chosen a rich bride for him. Because it was their will, he married her. Yet right on his wedding day, he obtained her permission to leave her for God. Then, in disguise, he traveled to Syria in the East and lived in great poverty near a Church of Our Lady. One day, after seventeen years, a picture of our Blessed Mother spoke to tell the people that this beggar was very holy. She called him "The man of God." when he became famous, which was the last thing he wanted, he fled back to Rome. He came as a beggar to his own home. His parents did not recognize him, but they were very kind to all poor people and so they let him stay there. In a corner under the stairs, Alexis lived for seventeen years. He used to go out only to pray in church and to teach little children about God. The servants were often very mean to him, and though he could have ended all these sufferings just by telling his father who he was, he chose to say nothing. What great courage and strength of will that took! After Alexis died, his family found a note on his body which told them who he was and how he had lived his life of penance from the day of his wedding until then, for the love of God.
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"Saint Alexius" redirects here. For the Russian saint, see Alexius, Metropolitan of Kiev.
Saint Alexius or Alexius of Rome or Alexius of Edessa (Greek: Ἀλέξιος; also Alexis) was a fourth-century monk who lived in anonymity and is known for his dedication to Christ. There are two versions of his life that are known to us, a Syriac one and a Greek one.
Syriac version
According to Syriac tradition St. Alexius was an Eastern saint whose veneration was later transplanted to Rome. The relocation of the veneration to Rome was facilitated by the belief that the saint was a native of Rome and had died there. This Roman connection stemmed from an earlier Syriac legend which recounted that during the episcopate of Bishop Rabbula (412–435) a "Man of God" who lived in Edessa, Mesopotamia, as a beggar, and who shared the alms he received with other poor people, was found to be a native of Rome after his death.
Greek version
The Wedding of Saint Alexius; Garcia Fernandes, 1541.
The Greek version of his legend made Alexius the only son of Euphemianus, a wealthy Christian Roman of the senatorial class. Alexius fled his arranged marriage to follow his holy vocation. Disguised as a beggar, he lived near Edessa in Syria, accepting alms even from his own household slaves, who had been sent to look for him but did not recognize him, until a miraculous icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary (later this image was called Madonna of St.Alexius) singled him out as a "Man of God." (Greek: Άνθρωπος του Θεού)
Fleeing the resultant notoriety, he returned to Rome, so changed that his parents did not recognize him, but as good Christians took him in and sheltered him for seventeen years, which he spent in a dark cubbyhole beneath the stairs, praying and teaching catechism to children. After his death, his family found a note on his body which told them who he was and how he had lived his life of penance from the day of his wedding, for the love of God.
Veneration
Alexius seems to have been completely unknown in the West prior to the end of the tenth century. Only from the end of the 10th century did his name begin to appear in any liturgical books there.
Since before the 8th century, there was on the Aventine in Rome a church that was dedicated to St Boniface. In 972 Pope Benedict VII transferred this almost abandoned church to the exiled Greek metropolitan, Sergius of Damascus. The latter erected beside the church a monastery for Greek and Latin monks, soon made famous for the austere life of its inmates. To the name of St Boniface was now added that of St Alexius as titular saint of the church and monastery known as Santi Bonifacio e Alessio. It is evidently Sergius and his monks who brought to Rome the veneration of Saint Alexius. The Eastern saint, according to his legend a native of Rome, was soon very popular with the folk of that city.. This church, being associated with the legend, was considered to be built on the site of the home that Alexius returned to from Edessa.
St. Alexius is mentioned in the Roman Martyrology under 17 July in the following terms: "At Rome, in a church on the Aventine Hill, a man of God is celebrated under the name of Alexius, who, as reported by tradition, abandoned his wealthy home, for the sake of becoming poor and to beg for alms unrecognized."
While the Roman Catholic Church continues to recognize St. Alexius as a saint, his feast was removed from the General Roman Calendar in 1969. The reason given was the legendary character of the written life of the saint Johann Peter Kirsch remarked: "Perhaps the only basis for the story is the fact that a certain pious ascetic at Edessa lived the life of a beggar and was later venerated as a saint."
The Tridentine Calendar gave his feast day the rank of "Simple" but by 1862 it had become a "Semidouble" and, in Rome itself, a "Double". It was reduced again to the rank of "Simple" in 1955 and in 1960 became a "Commemoration". According to the rules in the present-day Roman Missal, the saint may now be celebrated everywhere on his feast day with a "Memorial", unless in some locality an obligatory celebration is assigned to that day.
The Eastern Orthodox Church venerates St Alexius on 17 March. Five Byzantine Emperors, four Emperors of Trebizond and numerous other eastern European and Russian personalities have borne his name; see Alexius. There are numerous churches bearing his name in Greece and Russia but also the other orthodox countries. Saint Alexius is well known to the region of north Peloponnese because of the honorable skull of the Saint which is kept in the monastery of Agia Lavra. Churches dedicated to St. Alexius are found in Aigio and Patras.
Greek icon of Saint Alexius man of God (found in St Andrew's Cathedral, Patras)
Relics
Relics of Saint Alexius are found in some churches and monasteries in Greece including the Esphigmenou monastery of Mount Athos and the Dormition of Theotokos Monastery, Boeotia. In Russia relics of St. Alexius are kept in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in Saint Petersburg. In Cyprys relics are kept in the Kykkos Monastery. The most precious relic is a large part of the honorable skull of the Saint which is kept in the monastery of Agia Lavra near in Kalavrita, Greece. According to the Ktetorikon (monastic foundation codex) of the monastery, the honorable skull was donated to the monastery by the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaiologos in 1398 (this is also the inscription on the reliquary).
