Holy Apostle Titus of the Seventy, Bishop of Crete — August 25 / September 7 (Julian Calendar)

On this day, August 25 according to the Julian Calendar (September 7 civil calendar), the Georgian Orthodox Church commemorates the Holy Apostle Titus of the Seventy, Bishop of Crete.

The Holy Apostle Titus, one of the Seventy, was born on the island of Crete into a family of noble pagans. In his youth he diligently studied Hellenic philosophy and poetry. Immersed in learning, Titus lived a virtuous life and kept far from pagan vice and the turmoil of the passions; as the Hieromartyr Ignatius the God-bearer (commemorated December 20) tells us, he preserved his virginity.

At the age of twenty the blessed one heard a voice in his sleep telling him to abandon the vain wisdom of the Hellenes and to seek the teaching that leads to salvation. Later he was again directed from above to acquaint himself with the books of God’s holy prophets. The Lord’s chosen one first happened to read the prophecy of Isaiah.

When word reached Crete of the great prophet who had appeared in Palestine and of the miracles He performed, the ruler of the island, Titus’s own uncle, sent the saint to Jerusalem, wishing to learn how far the reports corresponded to the truth. This prophet was the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who took flesh of the Virgin Mary and came down to earth to redeem the human race from the captivity of the ancestral sin.

In Jerusalem Titus saw the incarnate God with his own eyes, heard His preaching, and believed that the promised Messiah stood before him. The blessed one became a witness of the Saviour’s Passion on the Cross and His death, of His glorious Resurrection and Ascension into heaven. On the day of Pentecost, standing among the assembled people, the saint heard how the twelve apostles spoke in various tongues by the grace of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:11). Saint Titus was baptized by the hand of the Apostle Paul and became his closest disciple. Titus was numbered among the Seventy Apostles and was consecrated Bishop of Crete by Saint Paul. Around the year 65 the chief of the apostles sent a pastoral epistle to his chosen one. When Paul was taken as a prisoner to Rome for trial before Caesar, Saint Titus temporarily left his diocese and went to Rome to serve his spiritual father; after Paul’s martyric death the blessed one returned to Gortyna, the chief city of Crete.

Once, during a festival of the goddess Diana, Titus preached to the assembled pagans. When he saw that no one was listening to him, he fervently begged the Lord to convince the erring people Himself of the impotence of the false gods. The prayer offered from a contrite heart was heard: the idol of Diana fell and shattered to pieces before everyone’s eyes. On another occasion the apostle asked the Lord not to allow the completion of a pagan temple of Zeus then under construction, and indeed it collapsed. The blessed Titus spread the light of the faith over the surrounding lands and reposed in extreme old age, at the age of ninety-four. Before his death his face shone like the sun.