CONCERNING ST. RHEGINUS, BISHOP OF SCOPELOS, MARTYR.
AROUND THE YEAR 355.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Rheginus, Bishop of Scopelos, Martyr (Saint).
G. H.
[1] The Greeks in the Menaea and in Cytheraeus, in the Lives of the Saints, celebrate on this day St. Rheginus, a great champion of the orthodox faith. On the same day, February 25, they say: "The memory of the holy and sacred Martyr Rheginus, Bishop of Scopelos." Then this couplet is read in the Menaea:
"You are unshaken, Rheginus, in the eagerness of your spirit, St. Rheginus is venerated on February 25. Even though they often brandish a terrible sword against you."
Then the following encomium is added in both sources:
"He was born in Hellas, the son of Christian parents; on account of his personal virtues and manifold piety, he was ordained Bishop of Scopelos; and being summoned to the Council of Sardica, he dissipated all heresies by the force of his words and the freedom of his speech. Then, having returned to his episcopal see, when a persecution was raised, he was seized by the governor of Hellas, and after being vexed with many torments, he was at last beheaded."
[2] On the preceding day, February 24, Galesinius inscribed St. Rheginus in his Martyrology, and on the 24th. and asserts that the following has been handed down to memory from the volumes and records of the Greeks: "In Greece, St. Rheginus, Bishop and Martyr. He, born of Christian parents, cultivated from his earliest age both in piety and in sacred letters, was made Bishop, and in the discharge of that office acquired for himself such a reputation for virtue that, being summoned to the Council of Sardica, he repelled all heresies by his eloquence. When, moreover, a persecution was raised against the Catholics not long afterward, he was seized, subjected to various tortures, and at last, with his head cut off, he gained the reward of martyrdom." Thus Galesinius, with some things added to and some things omitted from the earlier narrative of the Menaea. Ferrarius followed Galesinius, on the same February 24: "Among the Greeks," he says, "St. Rheginus, Bishop and Martyr."
[3] The episcopal city of St. Rheginus was omitted by Galesinius and Ferrarius. In the Menaea and in Cytheraeus he is called "Bishop of Scopelos." Now the Greek word scopelos is a common noun, He was Bishop of Scopelos, meaning in Latin a rock or crag, so that he could be considered the Bishop of certain people living among rocks and crags. Nevertheless, Ptolemy in book 3, chapter 13, near the end, records Scopelos as an island in the Aegean Sea, which is quickly sighted by those sailing from Thessaly toward the Hellespont among very many islands, and has its maritime shores divided by many bays -- perhaps on the Thessalian island of Scopelos? called in modern times Droma. St. Rheginus appears to have been the Bishop of these islands, with his see established on the island of Scopelos, under the Thessalian metropolis of Larissa, whose Bishop Alexander, together with the other bishops of his province, attended the general council held at the command of the Emperors Constans and Constantius in the year 347, at Sardica, he was present at the Council of Sardica in 347: a noble city in Thrace on the borders of Illyricum and Moesia, at which 370 bishops were present -- most of them Catholic, some Arian -- although only 61 names of subscribers now survive. At that council St. Athanasius was acquitted, the Arians condemned, the Council of Nicaea approved, some canons established, and certain synodal letters composed, in which it is said that the holy Synod was also assembled from among the bishops of Thessaly; and among these we have already said that St. Rheginus seems to have been.
[4] After the Emperor Constans was subsequently killed, the Arian heresy raised its horns more insolently under Constantius. Then St. Paul, Bishop of Constantinople, was cast out from his see, led to Cucusus, and strangled by the Arians on June 7 of the year 351. under the Arian Constantius, In the following years, the Arian Emperor Constantius, bending all his powers toward the destruction of St. Athanasius -- who had again been cast from his see -- drove bishops everywhere by force and beatings to his condemnation, or condemned those who refused this crime to prisons, exile, and even death. At this time we judge that St. Rheginus, killed around the year 355. a champion of the Councils of Nicaea and Sardica, was captured by the governor of Hellas and Thessaly, harassed with dire punishments, and at last beheaded, meriting the crown of martyrdom around the year 355.