Hieromartyr Phileas, Bishop of Thmuis

ADDITION: confirmed the unique documentary basis of this saint's vita — the surviving papyri "Acts of Phileas" (P. Bodmer XX and P. Chester Beatty XV, edited by A. Pietersma in 1984), containing a partial transcript of his interrogation — genuine 4th-century Greek manuscripts, not just later church tradition. The image of an ancient torn papyrus fragment on this card plausibly corresponds to exactly this unique source.

Hieromartyr Phileas, Bishop of Thmuis, came from a noble and wealthy family of Thmuis in the Nile Delta, received a philosophical education, and had honorably held high civic offices before his conversion to Christ and consecration as bishop. As bishop, he wrote a letter to his own congregation (partially preserved by Eusebius of Caesarea) vividly describing the tortures inflicted on Christian confessors at Alexandria during the height of the Diocletianic persecution.

He was soon arrested himself. His trial in Alexandria was conducted by the prefect of Egypt, Clodius Culcianus, who long tried to persuade the bishop to sacrifice, even bringing forward Phileas's own wife and children — but Phileas, reasoning with the governor as one philosopher to another, firmly refused.

He was beheaded together with Philoromus, a high-ranking Roman official who had publicly defended Phileas's stand and shared his fate. Feast: February 4/17.