St. Basil the Confessor, Disciple of St. Procopius

Basil was the disciple and fellow-sufferer of Procopius of Decapolis, sharing his exile, his prisons, and his testimony for the holy icons through the first wave of the iconoclast persecution under Leo III the Isaurian and Constantine V. The synaxarion preserves few biographical details apart from his connection to Procopius — his birth in the region of the Decapolis or in Asia Minor, his entry into monastic life as a young man, his attachment to Procopius as his pupil at one of the Constantinopolitan monasteries.

The two were arrested together when the iconoclast policy was first imposed and were exiled together through a sequence of places — Asia Minor, Cappadocia, the islands of the Marmara. Basil was beaten on multiple occasions, his body marked with the scars of repeated scourgings, and he was deprived of sleep, food, and company for long periods. He bore the ill-treatments with the same patience as his teacher.

He survived Procopius by some years, living long enough to teach in freedom after the death of Constantine V in 775 allowed a brief restoration of the icons. He died around 780. His feast falls on February 28, the day after his teacher's.