Alexius of Rome

Description

God-bearing Father Alexios the Man of God (also Alexis or Alexius; Gr. Ἀλέξιος) was a fourth-century monastic who is known for his dedication to Christ in anonymity. His feast day is commemorated by the Church on March 17.
Many sources will set the story of Alexis in Rome to somewhere in the tenth century, around the time when Benedict VII gave a church dedicated to St. Boniface to a group of exiled Christians, who were under the leadership of Metropolitan Sergius of Damascus. This church was renamed for Sts. Boniface and Alexis, and the relics of the Man of God were believed to be placed in this church by the West. The bones found in the thirteenth century are now not considered by the West to be those of either Boniface or Alexis. An epic poem of the eleventh century tells the legend of the saint; however, many scholars and the Eastern church believe that the Man of God lived and died in Edessa in the fifth century and the name “Alexis” is a Greek addition.[1] He is also classed as one of the famous holy fools of Byzantium, along with Symeon the Fool-for-Christ and Andrew of Constantinople.