ON SAINT JULIAN,
HEGUMEN AT CONSTANTINOPLE.
A Collection concerning his cult and the place of his burial.
Julian, Hegumen, at Constantinople (St.) G. H.
The Manuscript Synaxary of the Church of Constantinople, already praised above, suggests these things concerning this Saint: Of the holy Julian, of those at Liba in Dagoute. Sacred memory. In the printed Menaea near the end it is read, in those of Dagatus, for which in the Chifletian Manuscripts there is, in Dagouel. Our Rader judges that Liba is not far distant from the Nitria of Egypt: but he confesses that the word Dagati, or Dagata, or Daguel, is unknown to him. I judge that in Constantinople itself the part facing Thrace with its suburb is called Liba. For in the Life of St. Nicholas the Studite, illustrated by us on the 4th day of February, Liba a monastery of Constantinople. number 13, The Huns laid waste the regions toward Liba, and number 44, a certain man, distributing the riches of the price of the redemption of his soul largely to the needy, in the city toward the parts of Liba buying a place remote and apt for quiet, with a most upright purpose of mind, offers it to the holy man Nicholas, providing by that bounty a convenient quiet to the lover of it; which place he, by the grace of God, at length made an illustrious monastery, fixing in it from the beginning the best foundation. Cantacuzenus too, in book 1 chapter 40, asserts that the body of Irene, wife of Andronicus the Younger, was carried to Byzantium and was buried in the monastery at Liba, magnificently and with royal pomp. Charles du Fresne, Lord of Cange, in book 4 of Christian Constantinople chapter 6 number 55, makes mention of this St. Julian, related on the 12th of June, and doubts whether it ought not to be read Λιβὸς, by whose appellation there existed a Church dedicated to the Mother of God: which, under the Emperor Leo the Philosopher, is read to have been restored, in the same Charles, chapter 2 number 26. In the Chifletian Manuscript Menaea these verses are added:
Julian is buried, a great Father, / having reached the way of the tomb, full of days. Title of Great Father.
Julian the great Father is buried, / full of days, having entered the way of the sepulchre.
From all these things it seems it can be gathered that St. Julian was in the said monastery a great Father; or Hegumen, and there buried obtained sacred veneration. The said Nicholas the Studite flourished in the ninth century of Christ, which seems also to be said of this St. Julian.