Saint Florus Bishop of Amisus

Florus was a Byzantine layman and court official who, after the deaths of his wife and children, withdrew from public life and was later consecrated Bishop of Amisus, a port city on the southern coast of the Black Sea in Asia Minor. He is commemorated in the Orthodox Church on December 18.

By the account preserved in the synaxarion, Florus was born to Christian parents and received a good education. He entered imperial service and rose to the rank of patrician, one of the senior dignities of the Byzantine court. He married and had children, and so spent the earlier part of his life within the ordinary obligations of family and public office rather than in the monastic estate to which he later turned.

Sources place his life in the later sixth and early seventh centuries, during the reigns of the emperors Justin II (565–578) and Maurice (582–602). After he had served as bishop and guided his flock, he is said to have died peacefully near the beginning of the seventh century.