Chronia Polla to His Eminence Metropolitan Alexios

 

With great love and respect, with prayers and best wishes
for a blessed and grace-filled Name Day,
we wish our beloved Metropolitan Alexios

 

Xronia polla!

May God grant His Eminence many years of health, peace and joy,
filled with abundant blessings!

Eis polla eti, Despota!

ST. ALEXIOS “THE MAN OF GOD”
Commemorated March 17

 

St Alexios was born in 380 AD in Rome during the reign of Theodosios the Great and was raised in a royal household by his parents, Ephemios and Aglaia, and at their request was joined to a young woman in marriage. After a vision of St Paul, who said he should answer the call to God at all costs, reading to him the passage in Matthew “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, ” St. Alexios did not remain with his bride even for one day, but fled to monastery in Syria, where he lived for eighteen years. He returned to Rome in the guise of a beggar and sat at the gates of his father’s house, unknown to all and mocked by his own servants. His identity was revealed only after his death by a paper that he had on his person, which he himself had written a little before his repose. The pious Emperor Honorius honored him with a solemn burial. The title “Man of God” was given to him from heaven in a vision to the Bishop of Rome on the day of the Saint’s repose.