MACARIUS, Abbot of PELECETE, saint. — Born in Constantinople, died c. 1829. Successor of St. Hilarion (end of the 8th century), he equalled him in zeal for sacred images; he is called *tautomagros* for his intercession in healing diseases and obtaining rain. A man of uncommon learning, he was ordained priest by St. Tarasius; but he suffered not a little at the hands of the iconoclast emperors Leo the Armenian and Michael Balbus. At his death he was over seventy years old, exiled on the unknown island of Afrosia, perhaps the Daphnusia of Ptolemy. Feast: 18 Aug.; translation: 19 Apr.
BIBL.: Acta SS. Aprilis, I, Antwerp 1675, pp. 815–20; Acta graeca, written by his successor Saba, in Anal. bolland., 16 (1897), pp. 142–63; Ch. von de Vorst, Note sur Macaire de Pélecide, ibid., 32 (1913), pp. 270–73. Emanuele Candal