Saint Sophronius

Catholic Saint

Feast Day : March 11

Sophronius was born in Damascus around 560. In his late teens or early twenties, he became an ascetic and went to either Jordan or Egypt. In 605, invading Persians forced him to go to Alexandria, and when the invaders arrived there in 616 he went to Rome. In 619, he returned to Palestine and lived in the Theodosius monastery in Jerusalem. Sophronius was an opponent of Monothelitism, and went to Alexandria to argue unsuccessfully against Patriarch Cyrus of Alexandria. He went to Constantinople in 633 to argue against Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople, again unsuccessfully. Sophronius was elected patriarch of Jerusalem in 634. Muslims captured the city in 637, and Sophronius died the following year. Many of Sophronius’s works no longer exist. He wrote on the life of St. John the Almsgiver, homilies, treatises, sermons and poems. He wrote about the martyrs John and Cyrus, and also an account of St. Mary of Egypt.