Publius
4th century abbot
Feast: 25 January (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)
Who they were
Publius, honoured chiefly by the Greeks, was the son of a senator of Zeugma on the Euphrates. He sold his property for the poor, lived first as a hermit and then ruled a large community, allowing his monks only vegetables, coarse bread and water.
Theodoret, the only real source, says he founded two communities, one Greek and one Syrian, each using its own language in the liturgy. He seems to have died about 380.
The miracles
There was never a formal cause: he has been honoured as a saint since before the Church's formal processes began.
Why that counted as sanctity
A fourth-century abbot on the Euphrates known from Theodoret.
- Butler's Lives of the Saints, ed. Thurston and Attwater (1956), vol. I - 25 January
- Wikidata Q4383206 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
Checked against the sources listed on 22 September 2026. Corrections welcome.