Pantaleon

Saint Pantaleon (; 275 – 305 AD) was a Christian martyr from Nicomedia in Bithynia who was executed during the Diocletianic Persecution in 305 AD. In Western Christianity, he is venerated as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, a group of saints especially venerated during the Late Middle Ages,

He was won back to Christianity by Saint Hermolaus (characterized as a bishop of the church at Nicomedia in the later literature), who convinced him that Christ was the better physician, signalling the significance of the exemplum of Pantaleon that faith is to be trusted over medical advice.

St. Alphonsus Liguori wrote regarding this incident:

The Church of St. Panteleimon in Gorno Nerezi, Skopje, North Macedonia Church of St. Panteleimon, built in 1735–1739, is one of the oldest in St. Petersburg

By miraculously healing a blind man by invoking the name of Jesus over him, Pantaleon converted his father, upon whose death he came into possession of a large fortune. He freed his slaves and distributed his wealth among the poor. Yet the fact of his martyrdom itself seems to be supported by a veneration for which there is testimony in the 5th century, among others in a sermon on the martyrs by Theodoret (died c. 457); Procopius of Caesarea (died c. 565?), writing on the churches and shrines constructed by Justinian I tells that the emperor rebuilt the shrine to Pantaleon at Nicomedia; and there is mention of Pantaleon in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum.

Pantaleon is a patron saint of physicians and of midwives, and is invoked against consumption. He is depicted as a beardless young man holding a book with a cross on it.

Veneration in the East Panteleimon, shown here with a lancet in his right hand. This Byzantine tile from the 10th century probably formed a frieze on a church wall or altar screen. The Walters Art Museum.

The Eastern tradition concerning Pantaleon broadly follows the medieval Western hagiographic tradition, but differs in some details of the account of his martyrdom. It states that Hermolaus was still alive while Pantaleon's torture was under way, but was martyred himself shortly before Pantaleon's beheading along with two companions, Hermippas and Thermocrates.

Pantaleon's relics, venerated at Nicomedia, were transferred to Constantinople. Numerous churches, shrines, and monasteries have been named for him; in the West most often as St. Pantaleon and in the East as St. Panteleimon; to him is consecrated the St. Panteleimon Monastery at Mount Athos, Agios Panteleimon Monastery in Crete, St. Panteleimon Monastery in Myrtou, Cyprus, and the 12th-century Church of St. Panteleimon in Gorno Nerezi, North Macedonia.

According to Movses Kaghankatvatsi, his relics were brought to a church built in the town of Tsri (then Caucasian Albania, near modern Barda, Azerbaijan) by St. Grigoris. Catholicos Lazar of Albania built the Church of St. Pantaleon in his honor in Beghame'j (near modern Ağcabədi, Azerbaijan). King Vachagan III of Albania rediscovered his remains and interred them in the Amaras Monastery, located in modern Nagorno-Karabakh, and named his firstborn son after the saint.

Veneration in Western Europe Stained glass window depicting Saint Pantaleon in the Church of Saint Pantaleon in Valeuil, France.

After the Black Death of the mid-14th century in Western Europe, as a patron saint of physicians and midwives, he came to be regarded as one of the fourteen guardian martyrs, the Fourteen Holy Helpers. Relics of the saint are found at Saint Denis at Paris; his head is venerated at Lyon. A Romanesque church was dedicated to him in Cologne in the 9th century at the latest.

England In the British Library there is a surviving manuscript, written in Old English, of The Life of St Pantaleon (British Library, MS Cotton Vitellius D XVII), dating from the early eleventh century, possibly written for Abbot Ælfric of Eynsham. The Canons' Vestry off the south transept of Chichester Cathedral was formerly a square-plan chapel dedicated to Saint Pantaleon – it was possibly under construction just before the cathedral's great fire of 1187.

France In France, he was depicted in a window in Chartres Cathedral. Saint-Pantaléon-de-Lapleau, in the Corrèze département, Limousin Saint-Pantaléon-de-Larche, in the Corrèze département, at the border of Périgord and Quercy Saint-Pantaléon-les-Vignes, in the Drôme département, Rhône-Alpes – a wine-growing village that is part of the Côtes du Rhône vineyard region Saint-Pantaléon, in the Saône-et-Loire département, Bourgogne – administratively linked to Autun, bishopric see

Germany The Church of Saint Pantaleon, in Cologne is a 10th-century Romanesque church, commissioned by the niece of the Byzantine emperor, Theophanu, who married the Holy Roman Emperor Otto II in 972. It is the oldest church of the cult of Saint Pantaleon west of Byzantium.

At the Basilica of the Vierzehnheiligen near Staffelstein in Franconia, St. Pantaleon is venerated with his hands nailed to his head, reflecting another legend about his death.

Italy

In Italy, Saint Pantaleon ( or ) is said to give favourable lottery numbers, victories and winners in dreams. A phial containing some of his blood was long preserved at Ravello.

In Dorsoduro, there is the Church of Saint Pantaleon the Martyr, popularly known by its Venetian name San Pantalon.

Portugal Saint Pantaleon is one of the patron saints of the city of Porto in Portugal, together with John the Baptist and Our Lady of Vendôme. Part of his relics were brought by Armenian refugees to the city after the Turkish occupation of Constantinople in 1453. Later, in 1499, these relics were transferred from the Church of Saint Peter of Miragaia to the cathedral, where they have been kept to this day.

Eponym Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias, the first European known to have sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, took a ship named São Pantaleão on that expedition. The Russian battleship Potemkin was renamed Panteleimon following her recovery after the mutiny of 1905 St. Pantaleon is the eponym of the character Pantalaimon in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series of novels