According to the church calendar, the commemoration of Saint Proterius always falls on February 28, the last day of winter. Even if it is a leap year, it remains in the same place, unlike, for example, John Cassian, whose commemoration is then moved to February 29. Due to the fact that the combination of the Gregorian and Julian calendars creates an additional 32nd day in the liturgical calendar of the Churches that follow the latter, Proterius is celebrated on March 12 in leap years and on March 13, i.e., the following day, at other times.
PROTERIUS OF ALEXANDRIA
By Rev. Dr. Augustine Sokolovski
At the Fourth Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon (451), when the envoys of the Roman bishop had already left the proceedings, a revolution took place in the entire church structure. The main churches of that time were given the name “Patriarchates.” The bishop of Constantinople and the bishop of Jerusalem became patriarchs. Constantinople was removed from the jurisdiction of the neighboring ecclesiastical metropolis, and the same happened to Jerusalem. The territories that were “added” to these two new patriarchates were separated from the once vast jurisdiction of Antioch. An “ecclesiastical annexation” took place. Alexandria lost its primacy in the East and “fell” to third place. Constantinople was made second. Based on the old Roman idea of “divide and rule,” a system of ecclesiastical pentarchy, or literally “five powers,” was set up.
Neither Latin Rome nor Coptic Alexandria ever recognized this reform, considering it unconstitutional, especially since its legates were already absent when these decisions were made. An Alexandrian priest named Proterius was appointed the first patriarch of Alexandria, replacing the deposed Archbishop Dioscorus. His name translates from Greek as “pioneer” or “firstborn.” Just a few years later, he was brutally murdered by opponents of the Council of Chalcedon. In the language of hagiography, he became a protomartyr. Just as Saint Stephen in the Book of Acts became the first preacher to be killed for Christ, Proterius became the first whose blood was shed by his Christian brothers in the ensuing centuries-long confrontation between supporters and opponents of the teachings of the Fourth Ecumenical Council on Christology. Murder for the sake of dogma led to Christians permanently losing primacy over Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, and other territories a century and a half later.
Saint Proterius was killed during a church service. On the eve of Holy Thursday, he was celebrating in one of the city's main sanctuaries Taking advantage of the death of the Orthodox Emperor Marcian (+457), who was a staunch supporter of the Council of Chalcedon, the crowd elected as their archbishop a certain Timothy, nicknamed Ailuros, meaning “cat,” due to diplomatic skill, or, as some believe, to the thinness of extreme asceticism. The crowd then broke into the church where Proterius prayed and massacred him. His body was hung on the city's tetrapylon arch, then dragged to the hippodrome, where it was burned. The ancient Egyptians were obsessed with physical immortality, which is why mummification techniques were so advanced. Following this logic, burning a corpse was considered a sign of complete contempt for the deceased and a symbol of total destruction. The horror of what happened to Proterius was that he was destroyed not by pagans, but by Christians. Due to Lent and the Easter period, when saints are not сelebrated, the day of remembrance of Proterius in the calendar was moved from March 28 to February 28, i.e., one month earlier. For Orthodox Christianity, which recognizes the Council of Chalcedon as Ecumenical, the memory of Saint Proterius is extremely important. Alas, there is no liturgical text in the Slavonic Menaion for the day of his celebration.