St. Zacchaeus the Publican

  Posted on August 19, 2024  by admin  No comments

Also known as Zaccheo

Additional Memorials 20 April (Coptic calendar), 32nd Sunday after Pentecost (Byzantine calendar), 27 August (Martyrology of Rabban Sliba)

Mentioned in Gospel of Luke as the short tax collector who climbed a tree in order to see Jesus because he couldn’t see over the crowd. Jesus decided to go to the man’s house, and when the locals grumbled that Christ was friendly with sinners, Zacchaeus showed his conversion by making retribution to any he had harmed, and by giving largely to charity. Since that’s all we actually know, many legends have grown around him, including that he married Saint Veronica, that he became bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, and that he is Saint Amadour who was an early hermit in France. Patronage innkeepers (the word publican formerly meant a collector of taxes from the public; in English it later meant the proprietor of a public house, pub or inn.