The life of St Achillius of Larissa
He was among the bishops present at the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 325, where Church tradition remembers him as a forceful defender of the faith against the Arian teaching that the Son was a creature made by the Father rather than eternally begotten of him; one account tells of a sign worked through his prayer during a debate with the Arians, though this belongs to pious memory rather than to any contemporary record. Returning to his see, he worked to establish Christianity firmly in his city, closing pagan temples and building and adorning churches, and he was remembered also as a healer, particularly of those afflicted by demonic torment.
He reposed in Larissa around the year 330. Some six centuries later, when the Bulgarian ruler Samuel took the region, his relics were carried to an island in Lake Prespa that has since borne his name, and they remained there for many centuries before eventually being returned to Larissa.
