Venerable Theophanes the Branded 24/10/2010
A confessor and author of canons. He was born in Arabia of wealthy and devout parents. Together with his brother Theodore (December 27) they became monks at the Monastery of Saint Sabas the Sanctified. As highly educated monks, the Patriarch Thomas of Jerusalem sent them to the Emperor Leo the Armenian to argument and to defend the veneration of the icons. The cruel Emperor put the two holy brothers to brutal tortures and threw them to prison. Later the iconoclast Emperor Theophilus continued their torturing and to become a laughing stock of people he ordered mocking words to be branded on their faces. When the time of the iconoclast heresy has passed, Saint Theophanes was released from prison, and soon after consecrated as a bishop. He died in peace in 847. For twenty-five years he had suffered for the icons. He had written a hundred forty five canons and made himself worthy to inherit the everlasting joy of his Lord.
