Saint Pausicacus Bishop of Synnada

Saint Pausicacus was a bishop of Synnada in Phrygia, in Asia Minor, who lived in the latter part of the sixth century and died early in the seventh. According to the synaxarion, he was a native of Apamea in Syria, raised in the Christian faith by pious parents, and from his youth he embraced an ascetic life of prayer, vigil, and fasting. He is remembered as a wonderworker to whom the Lord gave the gift of healing sicknesses of both soul and body, and the tradition also numbers among his gifts the casting out of demons.

Patriarch Cyriacus of Constantinople, whose tenure the sources place in the years 591 to 606, consecrated Pausicacus as Bishop of Synnada. As a pastor he is described as exacting in his care for his flock, tolerating neither heretics nor those of dissolute life among them, and teaching the virtuous life in discourse remembered as powerful and lively. He died peacefully, by tradition in the year 606, and the Orthodox Church commemorates him on May 13.

Two miracles in particular attach to his episcopate. Having come to Constantinople on the affairs of his Church, he is said to have healed the emperor Mauricius of an illness. On his return journey, when his companions were suffering from thirst, he prayed to God for water, and a spring of pure water is related to have sprung up from the ground.