Hieromartyr Hermogenes Bishop of Agrigentum

Hermogenes was a bishop of Agrigentum, the ancient see of Agrigento on the southern coast of Sicily. He is numbered among the holy hierarchs of the Orthodox calendar and is commemorated on November 24. According to the surviving notice, he reposed in peace in the early ninth century, when Sicily still lay within the Byzantine sphere and its bishoprics belonged to the wider Greek-speaking ecclesiastical world.

Very little of his life is preserved in the available sources. Beyond his episcopal rank, his location at Agrigentum, an approximate dating, and his feast day, the synaxaria record no narrative of his upbringing, ministry, or death. Some references reflect uncertainty even about his dates, giving figures as widely separated as the third and the ninth century, though the better-attested notice places his repose in the early ninth century.

The synaxarion attaches to his commemoration a brief verse: that Hermogenes was carried away from the human race, having put to shame the insolence of the demonic race. The line is the principal liturgical witness to his memory, but it supplies no concrete biographical detail and is best read as a general commendation of his sanctity rather than a record of specific events.