In the Orthodox Church, saints are the main helpers for any true Christian. People who did good deeds and had strong prayer during their lifetime are now being addressed in churches. They sincerely followed God's commandments and lived in different parts of the planet - in the Roman Empire, in the territory of modern Israel, Greece or Rus'. December 25th is an important date that is celebrated by all Orthodox Christians. In the church it is customary to remember the strong saint - Spyridon of Trimythous. All his life he truly served the Lord and spent his days in prayer.
How do prayers to Spyridon of Trimifuntsky help and how should they be read?
Saint Spyridon, both during his life and after his departure to heaven, always cared for sick and suffering people. He surrounded believers with his help and care. By turning to the saint with prayer, you can solve material problems, be it a shortage of funds or the desire to buy an apartment, develop trade or business. A former bishop helps you find a suitable job.
A prayer that was said sincerely and with a pure heart will allow you to attract the attention of Spyridon of Trimifunsky. It is only important to maintain faith and hope in the help of the saint. His care will be a source of strength, health and energy for the believer. But before you can make a change in the world around you, you will have to change the inner one, grow spiritually. Daily work in prayer will help you find the path to the holy more easily.
You can contact Spyridon of Trimyfutinsky in the temple or do it in any other place. For example, you can do this at home several times a day until the request is heard. Don't give up if your dream doesn't come true soon. Healing and financial assistance sometimes require waiting. It is important that there is purity, sincerity and humility behind the soul when pronouncing sincere phrases. Faith leads a person along a not always easy path to a given goal.
Russian Orthodox Church
Saint Spyridon of Trimifunt (Salamin), a miracle worker, was born at the end of the 3rd century on the island of Cyprus.
From his childhood, Saint Spyridon tended sheep, imitating the Old Testament righteous in a pure and God-pleasing life: David in meekness, Jacob in kindness of heart, Abraham in love for strangers. In adulthood, Saint Spyridon became the father of a family. His extraordinary kindness and spiritual responsiveness attracted many to him: the homeless found shelter in his house, wanderers found food and rest. For his unceasing memory of God and good deeds, the Lord endowed the future saint with grace-filled gifts: clairvoyance, healing the incurable sick, and casting out demons.
After the death of his wife, during the reign of Constantine the Great (324-337) and his son Constantius (337-361), Saint Spyridon was elected bishop of the city of Trimifunt. In the rank of bishop, the saint did not change his way of life, combining pastoral service with works of mercy. According to church historians, Saint Spyridon in 325 took part in the actions of the First Ecumenical Council. At the Council, the saint entered into a competition with the Greek philosopher who defended the Aryan heresy (the Alexandrian priest Arius rejected the Divinity and the eternal birth from God the Father of the Son of God and taught that Christ is only the highest creation). The simple speech of Saint Spyridon showed everyone the weakness of human wisdom before the Wisdom of God. As a result of the conversation, the opponent of Christianity became its zealous defender and received holy Baptism.
At the same Council, Saint Spyridon presented against the Arians a clear proof of the Unity in the Holy Trinity. He took a brick in his hands and squeezed it: fire instantly came out of it, water flowed down, and the clay remained in the hands of the miracle worker. “Behold, there are three elements, and there is one plinth (brick),” said St. Spyridon then, “so in the Most Holy Trinity there are Three Persons, but the Divinity is One.”
In the person of Saint Spyridon, the flock acquired a loving father. During a prolonged drought and famine in Cyprus, through the prayer of the saint, the rains came and the disaster ended. The saint's kindness was combined with fair severity towards unworthy people. Through his prayer, the merciless grain merchant was punished, and the poor villagers were delivered from hunger and poverty.
Envious people slandered one of the saint's friends, and he was imprisoned and sentenced to death. The saint hurried to help, but a large stream blocked his path. Remembering how Joshua crossed the overflowing Jordan (Joshua 3:14-17), the saint, with firm faith in the omnipotence of God, offered up a prayer, and the stream parted. Together with his companions, unwitting eyewitnesses of the miracle, Saint Spyridon crossed overland to the other shore. Warned of what had happened, the judge greeted the saint with honor and released the innocent man.
Saint Spyridon performed many miracles. One day, during a service, the oil in the lamp burned out, and it began to fade. The saint was upset, but the Lord consoled him: the lamp was miraculously filled with oil. There is a known case when Saint Spyridon entered an empty church, ordered lamps and candles to be lit, and began the service. Having proclaimed “Peace to all,” he and the deacon heard in response from above a great multitude of voices shouting: “And to your spirit.” This choir was great and sweeter than any human singing. At each litany, an invisible choir sang “Lord, have mercy.” Attracted by the singing coming from the church, people nearby hurried to her. As they approached the church, wonderful singing filled their ears more and more and delighted their hearts. But when they entered the church, they saw no one except the bishop with a few church servants, and they no longer heard heavenly singing, from which they were in great amazement.
The saint healed the seriously ill Emperor Constantius and spoke with his deceased daughter Irene, who had already been prepared for burial. And one day a woman came to him with a dead child in her arms, asking for the saint’s intercession. After praying, the saint brought the baby back to life. The mother, shocked by joy, fell lifeless. But the prayer of the saint of God restored life to the mother.
There is also a well-known story by Socrates Scholasticus about how thieves decided to steal the sheep of Saint Spyridon: in the dead of night they climbed into a sheepfold, but immediately found themselves tied up by an invisible force. When morning came, the saint came to the herd and, seeing the bound robbers, prayed, untied them and for a long time persuaded them to leave their lawless path and earn food by honest labor. Then, giving them a sheep each and sending them away, he said kindly: “Let it not be in vain that you kept watch.”
Foreseeing the secret sins of people, the saint called them to repentance and correction. Those who did not heed the voice of conscience and the words of the saint suffered God's punishment. As a bishop, Saint Spyridon showed his flock an example of a virtuous life and hard work: she tended sheep and harvested grain. He was extremely concerned about the strict observance of church rites and the preservation of the entire integrity of the Holy Scriptures. The saint strictly rebuked priests who in their sermons inaccurately used the words of the Gospel and other inspired books.
The entire life of the saint amazes with its amazing simplicity and power of miracles. given to him by the Lord. According to the word of the saint, the dead awakened, the elements were tamed, and idols were crushed. When the Patriarch convened a Council in Alexandria for the purpose of crushing idols and temples, through the prayers of the fathers of the Council, all the idols fell, except one, the most revered. It was revealed to the Patriarch in a vision that this idol remained in order to be crushed by Saint Spyridon of Trimythous. Summoned by the Council, the saint boarded the ship, and at the moment when the ship landed on the shore and the saint set foot on land, the idol in Alexandria with all the altars was thrown into dust, which announced to the Patriarch and all the bishops the approach of St. Spyridon.
The Lord revealed to the saint the approach of his death. The last words of the saint were about love for God and neighbors. Around 348, during prayer, Saint Spyridon reposed in the Lord. He was buried in the church in honor of the holy apostles in the city of Trimifunt. In the middle of the 7th century, the relics of the saint were transferred to Constantinople, and in 1453 - to the island of Kerkyra in the Ionian Sea (the Greek name of the island is Corfu). Here, in the city of the same name, Kerkyra (the main city of the island), the holy relics of St. Spyridon are preserved to this day in the temple named after him (the right hand of the saint rests in Rome). 5 times a year, a solemn celebration of the memory of St. Spyridon takes place on the island.
Saint Spyridon of Trimifunt has been revered in Rus' since ancient times. The “solstice”, or “turn of the sun for summer” (December 25 of the new style), coinciding with the memory of the saint, was called in Rus' “Spiridon’s turn”. Saint Spyridon enjoyed special veneration in ancient Novgorod and Moscow. In 1633, a temple was erected in Moscow in the name of the saint.
In the Moscow Church of the Resurrection of the Word (1629) there are two revered icons of St. Spyridon with a particle of his holy relics.
The life of Saint Spyridon has been preserved in the testimony of church historians of the 4th-5th centuries - Socrates Scholasticus, Sozomen and Rufinus, processed in the 10th century by the outstanding Byzantine hagiographer Blessed Simeon Metaphrastus. Also known is the Life of Saint Spyridon, written in iambic verse by his disciple Saint Triphyllius, Bishop of Leukussia of Cyprus († c. 370; commemorated June 13/26).
Prayers to Spyridon of Trimifuntsky
First prayer
O great and wonderful saint of Christ and miracle worker Spyridon, Kerkyra praise, bright luminary of the whole universe, warm prayer book to God and quick intercessor to all who come running to you and pray with faith! You gloriously expounded the Orthodox faith at the Nicene Council among the Fathers, you showed the Unity of the Holy Trinity with miraculous power, and you completely put the heretics to shame. Hear us sinners, the saint of Christ, praying to you and through your strong intercession with the Lord, deliver us from every evil situation: from famine, flood, fire and deadly plagues. For in your temporal life you delivered your people from all these disasters: you saved your country from the invasion of the Hagarians and from famine, you delivered the king from an incurable illness and brought many sinners to repentance, you gloriously raised the dead, for the holiness of your life the Angels, invisibly in the church you had those singing and serving with you. Sitsa, then, glorify you, His faithful servant, Lord Christ, for you have the gift of understanding all the secret human deeds and convicting those who live unrighteously. You have diligently helped many who live in poverty and lack; you have nourished the poor people abundantly during famine, and you have created many other signs through the power of the living Spirit of God within you. Do not forsake us either, Saint of Christ, remember us, your children, at the Throne of the Almighty and beg the Lord to grant forgiveness of many of our sins, grant us a comfortable and peaceful life, a shameless and peaceful death, and grant us eternal bliss in the future us, may we always send glory and thanksgiving to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages.
Second prayer
O all-blessed Saint Spyridon, great servant of Christ and glorious miracle worker! Stand in Heaven before the Throne of God with the face of an Angel, look with your merciful eye on the people standing here and asking for your strong help. Pray to the compassion of God, the Lover of Mankind, not to judge us for our iniquities, but to deal with us according to His mercy! Ask us from Christ and our God for a peaceful and serene life, mental and physical health, earthly prosperity and all abundance and prosperity in everything, and may we not turn the good things given to us from the generous God into evil, but into His glory and the glorification of your intercession! Deliver all who come to God through undoubted faith from all spiritual and physical troubles, from all yearnings and the devil’s slander! Be a sad comforter, a physician to the sick, a helper in times of adversity, a protector of the naked, a protector of widows, a protector of the orphans, a nourisher of infants, a strengthener of the old, a guide to the wandering, a sailing helmsman, and intercede for all those who require your strong help, even useful for salvation! For yes, by your prayers we are instructed and observed, we will reach eternal rest and together with you we will glorify God, glorified in the Trinity of Saints, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.
Prayer three
O blessed Saint Spyridon! Beg the mercy of God, the Lover of Mankind, not to judge us according to our iniquity, but to deal with us according to His mercy. Ask us, God's servants (names), from Christ and our God for a peaceful and serene life, mental and physical health. Deliver us from all spiritual and physical troubles, from all yearnings and the devil’s slander. Remember us at the throne of the Almighty and beg the Lord to grant us forgiveness of many of our sins, a comfortable and peaceful life, and grant us a shameless and peaceful death and eternal bliss in the future, so that we may continually send glory and thanksgiving to the Father and the Son and To the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages.
