The Bishop Agathon

Insight into Bishop Agathon and the arrival of the body of St. Bartholomew on Portinenti Beach in Lipari

The painting of St. Agatho-restored in 2021 thanks to a grant from the Aeolian Islands Preservation Foundation-came from Lipari Cathedral and in all probability must have been on one of the side altars dedicated to St. Agathon, the existence of which is attested by the records of Pastoral Visitations since the reconstruction of the largest of the Aeolian Churches after the terrible sack of 1544. That painting was likely replaced, towards the end of the 1700s, by another painting of St. Agathon (still in the Cathedral) when the marble altars and the new iconographic design carried out by Mercurio, commissioned by Archbishop Coppola, were made.

The subject of the canvas, despite some obvious shortcomings, is easy to read and portrays a key episode in Lipari’s religious history, as handed down by local tradition and, later, accepted in Campis’s Disegno Historico of 1694.

According to a centuries-old tradition, Agathon, who lived during the third century, at the time of Valerian’s persecution, was the first bishop of Lipari, around whom the first Christian community on the island must have gathered, whose headquarters were, almost certainly, in the Maddalena area, far from the acropolis, evidently still pagan.

Although around the figure of Agathon gravitate historical uncertainties and revolve a series of tales that have shadows of legend, the name of this holy bishop is linked to an event of fundamental importance for the Christian history of the Aeolian Islands and that is the miraculous arrival in Lipari of the body of St. Bartholomew, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus of Nazareth.

According to what was ratified in a 1617 document by the then bishop of Lipari (Bishop Vidal), which incorporated a much older tradition, St. Agatho on the 13th day of February in the year 264 of the Christian era welcomed, on the beach of Portinente, following a vision or dream that foretold his arrival, the remains of the Holy Apostle Bartholomew, which had miraculously arrived in a chest, sailing across the sea from the distant eastern shores.

According to the Acts of Martyrdom, in fact, the Apostle Bartholomew, because of his preaching, had encountered the hostility of the pagan king Astiage, who put him to death by condemning him to martyrdom by decortication. As his tomb continued to attract worshippers, the pagans decided to throw the sarcophagus into the sea. This, however, did not sink but floating on the waves reached the shores of the island of Lipari.

The permanence of the remains of the Apostle Bartholomew on the largest of the Aeolian Islands is historically attested by various authors, and on his devotion has practically innervated the entire religious history of the Archipelago, as attested by the numerous churches dedicated to him, the festivals that commemorate him to commemorate prodigious events, and his being even included in the municipal coat of arms.

The oldest evidence of the presence of St. Bartholomew’s body in Lipari, handed down not only from local sources, is that of Gregory of Tours, who as early as the 6th century (between 572 and 590) also reports a large church, in Lipari, in which the precious relics were venerated.

The story of Bartholomew’s martyrdom relates that he suffered in India. After the space of many years from his martyrdom, a new persecution against the Christians having arisen, and seeing the pagans that all the people flocked to his tomb and addressed prayers to him and offered incense, seized with hatred, they took away his body and, placing it in a lead sarcophagus, threw it into the sea, saying, Lest he seduce our people any further.

But by the providence of God […] the lead sarcophagus kept afloat by the waters that supported it, from that place it was translated to an island called Lipari. And news of it was given to the Christians that they might gather it up: and gathering it up and burying it, on this they built a great church. In this church he is now invoked and manifested to benefit many peoples by his virtues and graces.

The great church referred to by Gregory of Tours stood, almost certainly, where the small church of St. Bartholomew extra moenia (outside the walls) still stands today, between Portinente Bay and Marina Corta Bay. It was precisely in that area, in fact, that the early Christians must have had their usual place of worship, where they also placed the saint’s relics. Originally it was probably a dwelling place, then a modest temple, and finally, with the passage of decades, following transformations and enlargements, the great temple of which we have news in the 6th century. Once paganism with its cults was eradicated, although the bishop’s seat was moved to the acropolis, the body of the Holy Apostle and the first bishops of Lipari continued to be kept in the church “outside the walls” until the sack of the 9th century.

Another account of the miraculous arrival of the Apostle’s body is that of the Greek monk Theodore Studita (759-826):

The ark [containing the body of St. Bartholomew] instead of sinking, by divine grace, seemed to advance through the waves. It was dragged from the regions of Armenia and as it sailed it came to the island called Lipari, to be manifested there by the finding by the bishop of the place, the most holy Agathon […] He was received splendidly with much illumination and with perfumes and hymns, while all the people of the place came to him in joy. Thereafter the ark advanced no more; although in fact some people pulled it, it became immovable. Joy was succeeded by affliction: the people were helpless; but an expedient was devised. For near is the Lord to those who call upon him. The ark, carried on two chaste calves, was laid where his sacred dwelling would shortly be erected.

Theodore also reports a prodigy – also handed down by oral folk tradition – learned probably from some Greek monk exiled to Lipari by the patriarch.

Since at that time Vulcan, as it is called, being adjacent to the island, loomed ruinously over the inhabitants of the surrounding area, it was driven away [by the apostle] during the darkness and was somehow blocked at a distance, seven stages in the direction of the sea, so that to this day it is manifest to those who look upon that promontory the location of the fire obliged to move away.

Further testimony is that of St. Joseph the Innographer (816-886). Although more succinct, the monk’s testimony repeats the version of the Studite Saint, according to which the Saint’s body thrown into the sea by the “tyrants of the place” on its journey across the Pontic Sea, the Aegean and the Adriatic, was accompanied by the bodies of four other martyrs, who, however, upon reaching their destination of Lipari, “turned to those places to which divine providence destined each of them.”

It was a discovery for him who at that time presided over the church of Lipari that he found on the beach the great Apostle of the Lord: this was he Agathon and his fame was great among all. He rushed in and seeing the body that had been thrown on dry land, full of astonishment and joy cried out: Welcome, O harbor of salvation for those for those who struggled in the sea of calamities, welcome O divine river of the Paraclete […]. Thus says this land that from being poor has become rich: today I have received as a gift a great treasure […] indeed I have Bartholomew as an inhabitant. You all my islands, rejoice with me today, you all cities, rejoice with me forever. Near you lie the bodies of many saints, to me one will suffice in place of all.