السيرة
The Lives of the Saints and Martyrs in the Coptic Orthodox Church
St. Alexis of the Region of Edessa
St. Alexis attained great renown in the region of Edessa (Odessa) in Mesopotamia, and he was called the Man of God. The West likewise came to know him, and in the fourteenth century he was chosen to be the patron of a community devoted to nursing the sick, called the "Brothers of Alexis."
He represents the life of the person who chooses the life of poverty by his own will, thereby becoming a blessing to many through his poverty and his piety.
His Upbringing:
He was born in the second half of the fourth century to pious parents who loved the poor. His father, Euphemian, was a senator in Rome, and his mother, Aglae, was barren; they were granted this child a long while after their marriage, and they raised him in the spirit of piety and worship.
He longed to consecrate his life to worship in the virginity of soul and body, but his parents chose for him a beautiful, wealthy, and pious young woman. Out of his modesty he could not resist his parents; yet on the first day of his wedding he gave his bride a precious ring and a costly girdle (perhaps before the completion of the sacrament of marriage, on the night before), and then he disguised himself in plain garb and fled to Laodicea. His parents and his wife grieved over him and, in deep bitterness, set about searching for him.
Fearing lest anyone recognize him, he set out from Laodicea to Urfa in Syria. There he would rise early each day and go to the church, spending his day in worship of God; then he would go out to find a morsel of bread like one of the poor, and return to the church to spend the greater part of the night in worship.
Though he lived as one poor and lowly, it was not possible for him to conceal his inner richness, so that he became a source of consolation to the poor who mingled with him and shared their poverty with him. As for the rich and those of middling means, they perceived from his gentleness, meekness, and cheerfulness that he was no ordinary poor man, but rather the Man of God in disguise!
It is said that the priest of the church, as he was standing before the icon of the Virgin, heard a voice assuring him that this poor man who slept each night at the door was a righteous man; and the matter was repeated a second time. So the priest asked Alexis to come with him to his house, and when word of it spread through the city, he could not bear a word of honor. He set out for Laodicea and made for a ship to go to Tarsus, but the force of the wind changed the ship's course, so it turned toward Italy, and he returned to his own homeland, his features having become unrecognizable.
He went to the palace of his father, who was known for his love of the poor, and asked the servants to take him in among them. They gave him the lowliest place, and sad to say, he was treated by them with harshness, contempt, and disdain because of his tattered clothes and his extreme poverty.
All that he possessed was an icon of the Crucifixion. He spent all his time in worship and prayer, going out only to the church once a week to partake of the Holy Mysteries.
He remained in this state for seventeen years, seeing his parents without their recognizing him. And when he knew that the hour of his departure had come, he wrote down all that had happened to him on a sheet of parchment and held fast to it as he prayed, and he departed while still grasping the parchment. It is said that his father was praying at that time, and that Bishop Innocent I was presiding over the prayer, and all those present heard a voice from heaven saying that a righteous man had just departed in the house of Euphemian.
After the Liturgy, the bishop went with the senator to the house, where they found Alexis having departed and grasping the parchment. The senator and his wife recognized their son and wept bitterly, and they began to kiss him; then they buried him. This was in the year 436 A.D., and God manifested many wonders.
It is stated in some Greek manuscripts that he departed in a hospital at Edessa, and that after his burial in the public graves the bishop of Edessa learned his story, exhumed his body, and buried it in a private tomb