St. Basil the Confessor, Bishop of Parium

Basil was bishop of Parium on the southern shore of the Hellespont in the eighth century — a small but historically important see at the entry to the Sea of Marmara. He had been raised to the episcopate in the period of restored icon-veneration that followed the Seventh Ecumenical Council, but his episcopate stretched back into the iconoclast period that had preceded it.

When the iconoclast Council of Hieria was convened in 754 under Constantine V Copronymus, Basil refused to attend or to sign its decree against the icons. He was deposed, beaten, exiled — passed from place to place through Asia Minor under the policy that aimed to break iconodule bishops by separation from their communities. He bore these ill-treatments through many years and through the deaths of three iconoclast emperors.

He survived to see the brief restoration of the icons under the Empress Irene and died in peace around 760, before the final restoration under her grandson Constantine VI. His feast falls on April 12.