caption death_date feast_day venerated_in image article_title name
paphnutius . collection anton cos. . of egypt . etching from the 16/17th century 4th century ad april 19 eastern catholic church orthodox church ; greek catholic church ; roman paphnutius.jpg paphnutius of thebes
 saint paphnutius of thebes
paphnutius of thebes

paphnutius of thebes , also known as paphnutius the confessor , was a disciple of saint anthony the great and a bishop of a city in the upper thebaid in the early fourth century .
he is accounted by some as a prominent member of the first council of nicaea which took place in 325 ce .
paphnutius had been persecuted for his christian beliefs , and had suffered mutilation of the left knee and the loss of his right eye for the faith under the emperor maximinus , and was subsequently condemned to the mines .
according to some reports , at the first council of nicaea he was greatly honoured by constantine the great .
some ancient church historians claim that he took a prominent , perhaps a decisive , part in the debate at the first ecumenical council on the subject of the clerical celibacy .
it seems that most of the bishops present were disposed to follow the precedent of the council of elvira prohibiting conjugal relations to those bishops , priests , deacons , and sub-deacons who were married before ordination .
paphnutius , so certain ancient authors tell us , earnestly entreated his fellow-bishops not to impose this obligation on the orders of the clergy concerned .
he proposed , in accordance `` with the ancient tradition of the church '' , that only those who were celibates at the time of ordination should continue to observe continence , but , on the other hand , that `` none should be separated from her , to whom , while yet unordained , he had been united '' .
the great veneration in which he was held , and the well-known fact that he had himself observed the strictest chastity all his life , gave weight to his proposal , which was unanimously adopted .
the council left it to the discretion of the married clergy to continue or discontinue their marital relations .
in addition , paphnutius was a zealous defender of orthodoxy in the face of the arian heresy .
paphnutius supposedly accompanied saint athanasius to the first synod of tyre in 335 a.d. his feast is on april 19 -lsb- http://www.wirnowski.com/orthodoxy/names_m2z.html]; in the roman catholic church it is on september 11 .
the very existence of paphnutius is contested by the historian friedrich winkelmann , because he is never mentioned by athanasius , who also battled against arianism .
also , the `` church history '' of socrates scholasticus , our earliest source on paphnutius , is one of the very few references for him in general .
his participation in the first ecumenical council was disputed several times , among others by such a respected canon law historian as alfons maria cardinal stickler .
stickler 's objection is that paphutius ' presence at the council was never mentioned by the council 's historian eusebius of caesarea , and he also disproves socrates ' statement that he personally spoke to a participant of the council as socrates was supposedly born too late to know personally anyone who had taken part in it .
stickler 's main argument against paphnutius ' story is that the synod of trullo -lrb- 691 -rrb- failed to mention the paphnutius story when they allowed matrimony for priests , which was done , as stickler claims , under the emperor 's pressure .
the council of trullo , rather erroneously , referred only to the decrees of the council of carthage .
however , eusebius does not mention many things that certainly did happen , we are not sure when socrates of constantinople was born , and the council of trullo might have invoked several other canons from the past , though it did not .
on the other hand , there have also been several prominent scholars who defended the veracity of the paphnutius story .
the main arguments were laid down already by karl josef von hefele in his `` conciliengeschichte '' -lrb- 1855 -rrb- , and were taken up by his successor at the tübingen catholic faculty of theology franz xaver von funk , as well as by some other eminent historians as elphège vacandard in the article on celibacy in the prestigious `` dictionnaire de théologie catholique '' -lrb- 1905 -rrb- and henri leclercq in an article in the `` histoire des conciles '' -lrb- 1908 -rrb- .
vacandard 's position found wide acceptance among the scholars .
the original argument by hefele is available below .
