The Carmelite Calendar

St Peter Thomas - 8 January




On this day the Carmelite Order honours one of its great theologians and bishops, St Peter Thomas. The old calendar revered him as bishop and martyr, as he died from wounds received from the Mahometans at the siege of Alexandria. The current breviary seems to have had second thoughts about the whole martyrdom thing and calls him an "apostle of church unity" just saying that he "died" and not mentioning his preaching the crusade against the saracen horde or the wound from the Turkish arrow.

The picture is of St Peter Thomas. My notes on it have disappeared but if I recall correctly Zurbarán is the artist and it currently resides in one of the Boston museums.

There is a short life of St Peter Thomas here.