A Prayer to Saint Panteleimon

The Prayer of Jeremiah the Hermit

Holy Great Martyr and Healer Panteleimon! Pray God for us (names), and do not let illnesses remain in us any longer, by which we are in pain in body and soul! Heal the sores and scabs which have been inflicted on us by our passions. We ache with laziness and lethargy – heal us. We ache with craving and addiction to earthly things – heal us. We are in pain, O holy Panteleimon! We ache with forgetfulness: of the work of salvation, of our sins and weaknesses, of our duties – heal us. We ache with rancor, anger, and hatred – heal us, O holy Panteleimon. We ache with addiction, pride, haughtiness, and conceit, in all our poverty and wantonness – heal us. We are in pain with many and various fits of carnality: gluttony, drunkenness, excessive eating, lust – heal us. Sick with sleepiness, with too many words, with idle talk, with sluggishness – heal us, O holy Panteleimon! Our eyes ache with sinful sights, our ears ache with listening to idle talk, slander, accusations – heal us. Our hands are sore because of our unwillingness to offer prayers and to give alms – heal us. 

Our feet hurt from unwillingness to go to the temple of the Lord in haste, and from striving to walk in the hillocks and to visit the houses of the world – heal us. Our tongue and our mouths ache; they ache with idle talk, with evil language, with turning away from prayers and praises, or with saying them carelessly, distractedly, without attention, without understanding. From head to foot we ache: Our minds ache with incomprehension, unreasonableness, and insanity; our wills ache in us, turning away from holy tasks and striving to do harmful and profane things; our memories ache in us, forgetting our trespasses but holding the sins and insults of our neighbors without losing even one. Our imagination aches, unable and unwilling to vividly imagine our death, the eternal torment of sinners, the benefits of the kingdom of heaven, the wrath of God, the suffering of Christ on the cross, His crucifixion – heal us, O holy Panteleimon!

Everything in us hurts. Our soul with all its powers and faculties is no more. Our whole body, with all its members, also fails. Heal us, O holy Panteleimon, healer of the poor and affectionate physician, servant of the most-holy Mother of God, and do not leave us in our woes and in our infirmities. I glorify the blessed Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the blessed Virgin Mary, who sends you to serve the sick, and I thank you, holy Saint Panteleimon, unto ages of ages. Amen!

Today we celebrate the great Unmercenary Physician, right-victorious Martyr and Wonderworker Panteleimon – a doctor from Nicomedia in the 200s A.D. The saint was the son of the pagan idolater Eustorgius, and of St. Eubula his mother. In his icon he is depicted holding the physician's spoon and a medicine box.

Versed in the medical science of Hippocrates and Galen, but also graced by God with the gifts of healing and wonderworking, Panteleimon dedicated his life to service free of charge, treating especially those who were poor, needy or destitute — much like his unmercenary contemporaries Saints Cosmas and Damian, who also lived in the third century.

Though he was baptized Pantoleon (“All Lion”) his compassion earned him the name Panteleimon (“All-Merciful”)

He was beheaded under the emperor Maximian in or around the year 305 during the Great Persecution.

Troparion, Tone 3:
O holy healer and passion-bearer Panteleimon, entreat the merciful God that he grant our souls great mercy.