“When the great patriarch was being taken into exile, Theophanes Confessor, hegoumenos of the monastery of Agros, was staying on an estate [of that monastery]. Perceiving the other’s approach by divine inspiration, he accompanied him with incense and lights as he went by in a ship. As for the patriarch, he received this salutation with profound acts of obeisance, greeting Theophanes in return by stretching out his hands in blessings. Neither man saw, nor was seen by, the other; but, beholding each other with the eyes of the spirit, each one offered the other the customary reverence. One of those who travelled with him asked the patriarch: ‘Lord-and-master, whom were you greeting with your hands raised on high?’ ‘The most holy confessor, Theophanes, hegoumenos of the Agros monastery, who accompanies us with incense and lights,’ he replied. Not long afterwards, the patriarch’s prediction was borne out by the event for, before long, Theophanes (along with many others) was banished from the church. After being subject to many and unlimited woes, he received the confessor’s crown, never again being permitted to set eyes on the patriarch, so that not even in this particular did his prediction fail to come true.” (source)
Modern Hagiography
Lives of the Saints by Alban Butler.
Lives of the Saints by Sabine Baring-Gould.
Our Birthday Bouquet Culled from the Shrines of the Saints and the Gardens of the Poets by Eleanor C. Donnelly.
Pictorial Half Hours with the Saints by Auguste François Lecanu.
Writings of Saint Nicephorus
Medieval Hagiography
Art & Architecture
Nihil sub sole novum 