St. Pantaleon

Who they were

Pantaleon was physician to the emperor Maximian at Nicomedia, a Christian's son who, in the middle of that court, drifted out of the faith entirely. The lapse belongs at the front, because it is the rarest and most useful fact in his file: here is a canonized saint who left and came back, reconverted by a patient old priest named Hermolaus who did not ambush him.

Restored, he practised medicine the anargyros way, the silverless practice of Sts. Cosmas and Damian, treating the poor free in Christ's name, until the Diocletianic storm took the emperor's own doctor along with everyone else. The tortures of the developed legend are later embroidery; the martyrdom is ancient record. The East reveres him enormously under the name that is his best epitaph: Panteleimon, the all merciful.

Why people turn to St. Pantaleon

Doctors, with St. Luke, Cosmas and Damian, St. Joseph Moscati and St. Gianna Beretta Molla. And above all the lapsed who came back, and the people praying for one, with St. Cyprian and Pope St. Cornelius, who argued that the door stays open.

How to ask their intercession

For the one who left, by name. And if that is you: Hermolaus's method was patience and welcome and no ambush, so ask for someone like him rather than for an argument that wins.