Saint Onuphrius

Veneration

Both the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic churches traditionally mark his feast day on 12 June. A Life of Onuphrius of later Greek origin states that the saint died on June 11; however, his feast day was celebrated on June 12 in the Eastern Orthodox calendars from an early date.

The legend of Saint Onuphrius was depicted in Pisa's camposanto (monumental cemetery), and in Rome the church Sant'Onofrio was built in his honor on the Janiculan Hill in the fifteenth century.

Antony, the archbishop of Novgorod, writing around 1200 AD, stated that Onuphrius' head was conserved in the church of Saint Acindinus (Akindinos), Constantinople.

For several decades, Orthodox seminarians in Poland have begun their spiritual training in the monastery of St. Onuphrius in Jablechna. It is said that the saint himself chose the place for it, appearing nearly four hundred years ago to fishermen and leaving them an icon of himself on the banks of the river Bug.

The St. Onuphrius Monastery in Jerusalem is located at the far end of Gai Ben Hinnom, the Gehenna valley of hell, situated within the site of a Jewish cemetery from the Second Temple period. The structure is built among and includes many typical burial niches common to that period. The monastery also marks the location of Hakeldama, the purported place where Judas Iscariot hanged himself.

Saint Onuphrius was venerated in Munich, Basel, and southern Germany, and the Basel humanist Sebastian Brant (who named his own son Onuphrius ) published a broadside named In Praise of the Divine Onuphrius and Other Desert Hermit Saints.

Art

Images of Saint Onuphrius were conflated with those of the medieval "wild man". In art, he is depicted as a wild man completely covered with hair, wearing a girdle of leaves.

He is depicted at Snake Church (Yilanlı Kilise) in the Göreme valley open-air museum in Cappadocia, Turkey.

He became the patron saint of weavers due to the fact that he was depicted "dressed only in his own abundant hair, and a loincloth of leaves".

He (S. Onofrio) was named co-patron of the city of Palermo in 1650.

Name variants His name appears very variously as Onuphrius, Onouphrius, Onofrius and in different languages as Onofre (Portuguese, Spanish), Onofrei (Romanian), Onofrio (Italian), etc. In Arabic, the saint was known as Abū Nufir or as Nofer , which, besides being a variant of the name Onuphrius, also means "herbivore". Onuphrius and Onofrio are sometimes Anglicized as Humphrey, an unrelated name that is usually given a Germanic etymology.

Folklore Sicilians pray to Saint Onuphrius when they have lost something. The prayer has many variants, but it generally mentions the miraculous properties of Saint Onuphrius' hair. It is widely accepted that repeating the prayer whilst looking for something like keys, a misplaced ring, or anything else, will greatly help in finding it sooner.

St Onophrius' remains (Reliquary) are held in a sanctuary at Sutera (Sicily), where a feast is held in his honour every 1st Sunday of August and the saint's remains are carried around the town with a priest, marching band and pilgrims.