MACARIO, abbot of PELECETE, saint. — Born in Constantinople, ca. 820. Successor of St. Ilarione (late eighth century), he equaled him in zeal for the sacred images; he is called a wonderworker because of his intercession in curing illnesses and obtaining rain. A man more learned than most, he was ordained a priest by St. Tarasio; but he suffered greatly under the iconoclast emperors Leone Armeno and Michele Balbo. At his death he was more than seventy years old, banished in exile on the unknown island of Afrosia, perhaps Ptolemy’s Daphnusia. Feast on the 18th of the following month; that of the translation on April 1.
BIBL.: Acta SS. Aprilis, I, Antwerp 1673, pp. 815–20; Acta gracca, written by his successor Saba, in Anal. holland., 16 (1897), pp. 142–63; Ch. von de Vorst, Note sur Macaire de Pélécète, ibid., 32 (1913), pp. 270–73. Emanuele Candal