Holy Apostle Titus of the Seventy, Bishop of Crete (I)
The holy Apostle Titus, one of the Seventy, was born on the island of Crete, into a family of noble pagans. In his youth he diligently studied Hellenic philosophy and poetry. Absorbed in the sciences, Titus lived a virtuous life and kept far from pagan vice and the turmoil of the passions; as the Hieromartyr Ignatius the God-bearer (commemorated 20 December) tells us, he preserved his virginity.
At the age of twenty the blessed one heard a voice in his sleep telling him to leave Hellenic vain wisdom and seek the saving teaching. Afterwards it was shown to him from on high that he should acquaint himself with the books of God’s holy prophets. The first that the Lord’s chosen one happened to read was the prophecy of Isaiah.
When the report reached Crete of a great prophet who had appeared in Palestine and of the miracles he worked, the governor of the island, Titus’s own uncle, sent the saint to Jerusalem: he wished to find out how far the stories he had heard corresponded to the truth. This prophet was the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who took flesh of the Virgin Mary and came down into the world to redeem the human race from the captivity of the ancestral sin.
In Jerusalem Titus saw with his own eyes God made man, heard His preaching, and believed that the promised Messiah stood before him. The blessed one became a witness of the Saviour’s Passion and death on the Cross, of His radiant Resurrection and His Ascension into heaven. On the day of Pentecost the saint, standing among the assembled people, heard how by the grace of the Holy Spirit the twelve apostles spoke in various tongues (Acts 2:11). Saint Titus was baptised by the hand of the Apostle Paul and became his closest disciple. Titus was numbered among the seventy apostles and was consecrated Bishop of Crete by Saint Paul. Around 65 the chief of the apostles sent his chosen one a pastoral epistle. When Paul was brought in bonds to Rome to Caesar’s tribunal, Saint Titus left his diocese for a time and went to Rome to serve his spiritual father; and after his martyrdom the blessed one returned to Gortyna, the chief city of Crete.
Once, on the feast of the goddess Diana, Titus was preaching among the assembled pagans. When he saw that no one was listening to him, he fervently besought the Lord Himself to convince the people who had gone astray of the powerlessness of the false gods. The prayer offered with a contrite heart was heard: the idol of Diana fell down and was shattered to pieces before everyone’s eyes. Another time the apostle besought the Lord not to allow the pagan temple of Zeus then being built to be completed, and it did indeed collapse. The blessed Titus spread the light of faith over the surrounding lands and reposed in deep old age, at ninety-four. Before his death his face shone like the sun.
