Commemoration Day: November 25 (December 8)
Biography
The birthplace of St. Peter is unknown.
He was highly educated and held the post of head of the Alexandrian school. In 300 he took over the governance of the Church of Alexandria, becoming the successor of his teacher and spiritual guide, the blessed bishop Theonas.
Driven out of the city during the persecution of Christians under the emperors Diocletian and Maximian, St. Peter, having been in many regions of the empire, returned again to his native city in order to lead the Church of Alexandria personally in this dangerous time. The hierarch secretly visited the Christians held in prison, strengthening them in the faith, helped widows and orphans, preached the Word of God, prayed unceasingly and celebrated the Divine services. And the Lord kept him from the hands of the persecutors.
In this troubled time Arius, a teacher of impiety who denied the Divinity of Jesus Christ, rose up against the Church of Christ. St. Peter came out against him, anathematized the heretic and excommunicated him from the Church. And even when Arius, through the hierarch's disciples, begged bishop Peter to lift the excommunication, asserting that he repented and renounced his false teaching, the hierarch, guided by the Holy Spirit, foresaw the falsehood and cunning of Arius' renunciation and charged his flock not to believe Arius and not to receive him into church communion.
Under the wise pastoral care of St. Peter the Church of Alexandria, despite the persecutions, grew stronger and multiplied. But by order of the emperor Maximian (305–311) the hierarch was seized and condemned to death. A multitude of people gathered at the entrance to the prison, expressing their indignation. Wishing to avoid a popular uprising and bloodshed, the hierarch sent the authorities a letter in which he proposed that they take down the back wall of the prison so that he could be led out to execution secretly from the people. On a dark night St. Peter himself went out to meet the executioners, who led him outside the city walls and beheaded him on the very spot where the holy apostle Mark had once been executed, and a voice from heaven, heard that night by a holy virgin, proclaimed: "Peter is the beginning of the Apostles, Peter is the end of the Alexandrian martyrs". This happened in 311.
In the morning, having learned of the death of their bishop, crowds of people went to the place of execution, took the body and head of the martyr, brought them into the church and, having vested them in episcopal vestments, seated them on the high place for the funeral service. During his life St. Peter sat only on its footstool, because, in the hierarch's words, he saw a Divine light surrounding the high place and out of humility did not dare to ascend it. St. Peter, a great zealot of Orthodoxy, is also known as a profound theologian. Extracts from his book "On the Godhead" were read at the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon. Of his writings, the best known and most highly valued by the Church are his "Canons".
Hymnography
Troparion to the Hieromartyr Peter, Archbishop of Alexandria, Tone 8
Interceding for thy flock before the judgment seat of Christ on high, / thou didst feed it in the pastures of good life with thy most wise doctrines, / driving away Arius as a savage wolf / who had entered among them with godless teachings. / Therefore thou didst lay down thy life for them, / and wast called a shepherd, as the Lord said, / O blessed hierarch Peter; / pray to Christ God to grant remission of sins // to those who with love honour thy holy memory.
Kontakion to the Hieromartyr Peter, Archbishop of Alexandria, Tone 3
Thou didst enlighten the Church with Orthodox commandments, / and didst suffer for her, O God-blessed father, / driving away the apostate Arius; / therefore, celebrating thy most honourable memory, / we cry out in Orthodox manner: // Rejoice, O Peter, rock of the faith.