St. Sampson the Hospitable

Who was St. Sampson the Hospitable?

St. Sampson the Hospitable was a physician and priest of Constantinople, honored in the Eastern Church as a healer and as the founder of the hospice for the poor that bore his name. He was born in Rome to wealthy and devout parents, studied medicine, and gave everything he owned to care for the sick. In the imperial capital he became a priest, and after he healed the emperor Justinian he asked for nothing for himself, only a house where strangers, the destitute and the gravely ill could be cared for.

The Orthodox Church keeps his feast on June 27. His life was written down by St. Symeon Metaphrastes, the tenth-century compiler of saints' lives, so we know him through a pious account written centuries later. The heart of it, a doctor who served the poor and a famous hospice in Constantinople, is firm.

The life of St. Sampson the Hospitable

A Roman physician

According to his Life, Sampson received an excellent education in Rome, studying philosophy and medicine among other subjects, and lived a Christian life from childhood. When his parents died he turned the family estate into a clinic for the sick. So many came that he had to hire helpers. Once he had enough staff, he gave all his wealth to the clinic and lived content in poverty, taking to heart the Lord's words: "Sell that ye have, and give alms" (Luke 12:33, KJV).

Priest of Constantinople

He went to Constantinople hoping to spend the rest of his life in prayer and penance, but found as much need there as in Rome. He bought a modest house and began again to treat the sick. His Life says God gave him the grace of working miracles, so that he healed not only by his skill but by prayer.

Word of him reached Patriarch Menas of Constantinople, who ordained him a priest. When the emperor Justinian fell ill and his own physicians could do nothing, the patriarch suggested sending for Sampson, and Sampson healed him. Justinian offered gold and silver. Sampson refused, saying he had already given away all his wealth, and asked instead that the emperor build a hospice for travelers.

The Hospice of Sampson

The hospice, or xenon, was meant for the destitute, the gravely ill, and those who had lost their property or their health. When it burned in 532, the year of the great riots in Constantinople, Justinian rebuilt it and gave it a generous yearly income.

Here history and the Life do not quite agree. The OCA notes that the historian Procopius, writing in Justinian's own time, implies that Sampson lived before the sixth century and that the hospice already existed before Procopius's day (Buildings I.2.14). The traditional account places Sampson's death about 530, quietly, after a short illness, at a great age. Either way, the Hospice of Sampson was one of the best-known charitable houses of the Byzantine capital.

He was buried in the church of St. Mokios, which tradition says Constantine the Great had built.

The miracles of St. Sampson the Hospitable

All the wonders told of him come from his Life and are traditional:

• Healings during his life, by prayer as well as medicine, above all the healing of Justinian.
• Many healings at his tomb in the church of St. Mokios.
• Twice he appeared after his death to a lazy worker at the hospice and rebuked him for neglecting the sick.
• When a great fire swept Constantinople, his prayers brought a heavy rain that put out the flames before they reached the hospice, which by then had become a church with a new house for the homeless beside it.

Symbols of St. Sampson the Hospitable in art

In Byzantine and Russian icons he is shown as:

• An elderly priest with a long gray beard, in priestly vestments (the phelonion and stole).
• Holding a Gospel book, or blessing with his right hand.

Russian calendar icons called Menaion icons gather all the saints of a month in rows on a gold ground; he belongs among the saints of June, like those in the seventeenth-century panel below. His kontakion calls him "an excellent physician," and the Church honors him above all as a healer.

Feast day and churches

The Orthodox Church keeps his feast on June 27 (July 10 on the civil calendar for churches that follow the Julian calendar). The appointed readings are Galatians 5:23–6:2 and Luke 12:32–40. Churches dedicated to him stand in Russia and Ukraine, among them the Cathedral of St. Sampson in St. Petersburg. See our feast days page for other saints of June.

Prayer to St. Sampson the Hospitable

On his feast the Orthodox Church sings a troparion that praises his patience, prayer and love for the poor, and a kontakion that honors his relics and his power to heal and intercede; the OCA prints both on its website.

Let us ask St. Sampson to pray for doctors and nurses, for those who run shelters and hospitals, and for every sick person who has no one to care for them.