Venerable Athanasius the Confessor (+821)

The Venerable Athanasius the Confessor was born into a rich and pious family of Constantinople. From childhood he dreamed of dedicating himself to the Lord, and when he came of age he went to the monastery of the chief apostles in Nicomedia. The report of his pious life reached the royal court too. In the reign of the iconoclast Emperor Leo the Armenian (813–820) the faithful defender of Orthodoxy was cruelly tortured, persecuted and oppressed. The blessed Athanasius reposed in peace in 821.