ON ST. JOHN MARTYR,
HEGUMEN OF MENAGRIA AMONG THE GREEKS.
From a Greek Ms. Synaxarium.
CommentaryJohn Martyr, Hegumen of Menagria, among the Greeks (S.)
G. H.
[1] Many were the illustrious Hegumens, or Abbots or Provosts of various monasteries, under the Iconoclast Emperors, Leo the Isaurian, Constantine Copronymus, and their successors, who defended the orthodox faith, even suffering martyrdom. We judge this S. John, Cult among the Greeks. reported in a Greek Ms. Synaxarium, which we found at the College of Dijon with Peter Francis Chifflet, to be one of them. But where the monastery of Menagria was, we cannot ascertain, perhaps to be taught by others, when we have produced what we have. Therefore these things we find in the said Menaia on this 4th of June.
[2] Τῇ αὐτῇ ἡμέρᾳ ὁ ὅσιος ἡγούμενος Ἰωάννης τῆς μονῆς Μεναγρίας, σακκοβληθεὶς καὶ ἐν θαλάσσῃ ῥιφθεὶς τελειοῦται. "On the same day, the fourth of June, the holy Hegumen John of the monastery of Menagria, placed in a sack and cast into the sea, consummated his martyrdom." Then this Distich is added:
Κὰν σάκκος ἕξῃ, κᾲν βύθου κρύψῃ τόπος, Τὸν Ἰωάννην οὐρανοῦ λάβῃ τόπος.
"Though a sack hold him, though the place of the deep hide him; Yet the heavenly rest has received John."
Thus far Henschenius.
D. P.
[3] I, among the first rudiments of this study, illustrated on the 11th day of March the Life of S. Theophanes, from Prefect of the Aegopelagites become an illustrious Monk; who when, conjecture about the monastery of the Great-field. in Sigriana near Cyzicus, he had founded the monastery of the Field (which to differentiate from another smaller, called "Little-field," was afterwards called Μεγαλάγρου), in the time of Leo the Armenian on account of the defended cult of sacred Images, died in exile, around the year 820. But what if the common people, lovers of brevity, said Μεγάγρου, and μονὴν μεγαγρίας? which either the Greek Synaxarium writer found, with γ changed into υ (since these letters are very neighboring in Ms. codices), or I myself, hastily copying what seemed to me about to be of use, by erring with eye or pen, altered? This granted, we could opine that John succeeded Theophanes, disciple master, in the same Prefecture, and suffered that death from a similar cause; and either under the same Emperor, or under Theophilus, the supreme zealot of iconoclastic impiety, who nine years after Leo's death took up the Empire, and held it up to the year 842.