Commemorated on August 30
Alexander participated in the First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea, in place of the aged Patriarch Metrophanes. Afterward, he succeeded Metrophanes as patriarch. When certain philosophers wanted to debate with him about faith, he said to one, “In the name of my Lord Jesus Christ, I command you to be silent!” And the philosopher immediately became mute.
By his prayers, also, Arius’ life was shortened. With clamor and disgrace the noisy heretics died. And their deaths themselves show God’s wrath against them for their lies and for the disturbance they caused the Church of God. After he was condemned in Nicea, Arius came to Emperor Constantine one day and begged to be received into the Church again. The emperor asked Arius if he believed in the Nicean Creed. Arius, the cunning one, kept the written form of his heretical confession of faith in his bosom. Striking himself with his hand across his bosom, he said to the emperor, “Thus I do believe.” The emperor thought that Arius had repented, and sent him to Patriarch Alexander to be received into the Church again.
Patriarch Alexander was unwilling to receive Arius, knowing that he was a liar. Even so, the emperor designated a Sunday on which Arius was to be received back into communion, in the Great Church of Hagia Sophia. One the eve of that day, the holy patriarch prayed to God with grief to receive his soul before the blaspheming heretic was received into the Church. When the Sunday of the appointed day dawned, the patriarch was at service in the church and Arius, with the emperor’s men and his fellow heretics, set out for the church.
When they arrived at the square of Constantine, a pain both bodily and spiritual overcame Arius, and he looked for a place to relieve himself. There, in the square, was such a public place and he went in. His escort waited a long time , and became impatient from waiting. When some of them went to see what was wrong with Arius, they found him dead in that foul place with his intestine extruded outside his body in filth and blood.
Alexander died after a life of long suffering and devotion to the Lord at the age of ninety-eight in the year 340.
Troparion & Kontakion
Troparion — Tone 4
O God of our Fathers, / always act with kindness towards us; / take not Your mercy from us, / but guide our lives in peace / through the prayers of the Patriarchs Alexander, John, and Paul.
Troparion — Tone 4
Christ, the God over all, / has appointed you as a venerable shepherd of His Church, O Godly-wise Alexander, / a light upon the lampstand, a faithful steward, / and the most holy example of a pillar of Orthodoxy. / Therefore, we keep festival in your memory