Venerable
Venerable Procopius the Decapolite
VIII — нач. IX в.
Also known as: Прокопий Декаполит, исповедник, Прокопий исповедник
A monk and confessor of the Iconoclast era, imprisoned with his companion Basil and exiled for venerating the holy icons.
Venerable Procopius the Decapolite was a confessor who suffered for the veneration of holy icons during the Iconoclast period.
According to the traditional life, he was a monk from the Decapolis who, together with his companion St Basil, opposed iconoclasm; on the orders of Emperor Leo the Isaurian he was beaten and imprisoned until the emperor's death, then released, and he died in old age around 750.
The Orthodox Encyclopedia, based on a Greek Life published in 1990, places his homeland in the Decapolis of Isauria in Asia Minor. Born to a wealthy family, he gave his inheritance to the poor, spent seven years in a monastery and seven more as a hermit, then founded a monastery with a strict rule. Arrested under an iconoclast emperor, he refused to submit, was exiled and died in exile. Modern scholars date his confession to the reign of Leo V (813–820) and his death to about 820.
He is commemorated on 27 February (12 March new style); his companion St Basil the Confessor is remembered on the following day.