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A life spent serving ordinary people.

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October 28 · Priest

St. Malchion

St. Malchion

A life spent serving ordinary people.

Traditional feast

October 28
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

Not verified yet

Represents

Priest

Early life

Selected sentences from the original account, unaltered.

Thin entry · the 1897 book gives only 83 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.

Paul of Samosata was convicted of error, the council deposed and excommunicated him, and in his room appointed Domnus, son of his predecessor Demetrian, Bishop of Antioch.

What they represent

How they teach us to live

Drawn from themes in the original account

Learn from the kind of life it was. A life spent serving ordinary people.

Keep their day. Remember them on October 28 with a short prayer, and ask for their help.

Read more

The full original · 83 words

Read Baring-Gould’s full account

Baring-Gould’s sources: Greek Menaea and Menologies. Authority Mention by Eusebius, H. E. lib. viL c. 29; S. Jerome, ** De Viris Ulustribus”; Peter Diaconus in his letter to S. Fulgentius.] S. Malchion naturally follows after S. Firmilian. The council met at Antioch to decide on the case of Paul of Samosata. S. Firmilian had died on his way to attend it. Helenus of Tarsus, who probably bore to the council the news of his death, presided as the oldest bishop, in the place occupied by Firmilian on the two former occasions. Among the priests present, a certain Malchion, a sophist, made himself noticed by the skill with which he pierced the subtleties of Paul’s discourse, arrested him in his evasions, and brought him to a bald statement of his dogmatic errors. The bishops chose him to conduct the discussion with the incriminated bishop because of his well-known abilities, and the confidence they reposed on him was not disappointed. The notaries took down every word of the discussion, and those acts existed in the time of Eusebius and S. Jerome. All that remain to us are a few fragments preserved by two writers of the 6th century, Leontius of Byzantium and Peter the Deacon.

Paul of Samosata was convicted of error, the council deposed and excommunicated him, and in his room appointed Domnus, son of his predecessor Demetrian, Bishop of Antioch. Before separating, the synod despatched a letter to Dionysius, Bishop of Rome, and Maximus, Bishop of Alexandria, and all other bishops, priests, and deacons, narrating what had been done, and signed by Helenus of Tarsus, Hymenaeus of Jerusalem, Theotecnus of Caesarea, and other bishops, and by Malchion the priest It is not known when Malchion died.

Feast days

Feast: October 28

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from St. Malchion's story, and a nudge to keep going.

Also on October 28
St. Simon

St. Simon

October 28 · Apostle, Martyr
St. Jude

St. Jude

October 28 · Apostle, Martyr
T

St. Thaddaeus

October 28 · Feast
← All 1727 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Sources

Credits

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain.

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain in the United States. Reproduced unedited, except for short bracketed notes in grey that we added to explain names and terms (“S.” is the old abbreviation for Saint). Some history and judgments reflect 19th-century scholarship.