Our Venerable Father Sampson the Hospitable, the Host of Strangers, Priest of Constantinople
d. c. 530
A wealthy Roman skilled in medicine who gave away his inheritance, healed the sick freely, and was ordained priest at Constantinople, where he founded a great hospital and home for strangers that bore his name.
Saint Sampson the Hospitable was a sixth-century physician and priest of Constantinople, remembered as an unmercenary healer who gave away a large inheritance to treat the sick without charge. Born in Rome to a wealthy and devout family, he trained in medicine and devoted both his skill and his fortune to the relief of the poor, the sick, and strangers.
After converting his family residence in Rome into a free clinic, he settled in Constantinople, where he was ordained to the priesthood and became renowned for healings regarded as miraculous. According to his life, he cured the Emperor Justinian when other physicians had failed, and in return asked only that the emperor build a hospital and hospice for the destitute. The institution that bore his name became one of the great charitable foundations of the Byzantine capital.
He reposed around the year 530 and was buried at the Church of Saint Mokios in Constantinople, where many healings were reported at his tomb. His feast is kept on June 27.
Sampson lived during the early Byzantine period. By tradition he was born in Rome during the era of Odoacer's rule and later made his way to Constantinople, the imperial capital, where the central episodes of his life took place under the Emperor Justinian I.
His life belongs to the tradition of the 'unmercenary' saints, physicians who healed without accepting payment, joining medical skill to Christian charity.
In Rome, Sampson transformed his inherited estate into a clinic, hiring and training staff to manage the many people who came seeking both medical and spiritual help, and eventually devoting all of his wealth to the work while remaining content to live in poverty.
After healing Justinian, he asked that the emperor build a hospital and hospice for the impoverished rather than accept a personal reward. According to tradition, this foundation became one of the largest free medical institutions of the empire, situated near the Church of Hagia Sophia, and it served the destitute, the seriously ill, and those who had lost their property or health.
The xenon was burned during the Nika riots of 532 and afterward rebuilt and richly endowed by Justinian.
Saint Sampson was buried at the Church of the Holy Martyr Mokios (Saint Mokios) in Constantinople.
In later centuries his veneration spread to Russia: because his feast day, June 27, coincided with Peter the Great's victory over Charles XII of Sweden at the Battle of Poltava, St. Sampson's Cathedral was built in his honor in St. Petersburg.
Historically Documented: The principal narrative of Sampson's life records that he healed the Emperor Justinian after the imperial physicians had failed, and that he asked for a hospital for the poor rather than a personal reward.
Traditional Accounts: His life relates that he received from God the grace of working miracles and healed many ailments. Many miracles of healing were said to take place at his tomb at the Church of Saint Mokios, and tradition holds that the saint appeared twice to admonish a negligent worker at the hospice he had founded.