When he was a young man, Blaise studied philosophy and practiced as a doctor in Sebaste in Armenia, the city of his birth. He exercised his art with miraculous ability, good-will, and plenty of piety.
When the bishop of the city died, the church chose him to succeed him with the full support of all the people.
People came from all around to find cures for their spirit and their body; even wild animals came in herds to receive his blessing.
After becoming a bishop, a new persecution of Christians began. He received a message from God to go into the hills to escape persecution. Men hunting in the mountains discovered a cave surrounded by wild animals who were sick. Among them Blaise walked unafraid, curing them of their illnesses. Recognizing Blaise as a bishop, they captured him to take him back for trial. On the way back, he talked a wolf into releasing a pig that belonged to a poor woman. When Blaise was sentenced to be starved to death, the woman, in gratitude, sneaked into the prison with food and candles.
In 316, Agricola, the governor of Cappadocia and of Lesser Armenia, arrived in Sebastia at the order of the emperor Licinius to kill the Christians. He arrested Blaise.
As Blaise was being led to prison, a mother cried out for him to help her only son. The boy was choking to death with a fish-bone lodged in his throat. She thrust her son at Blaise's feet and the child was immediately cured.
Regardless, the governor, unable to make Blaise renounce his faith, beat him with a stick, ripped his flesh with iron combs, and beheaded him.
For centuries, Catholics remember Saint Blaise's feast day by the Blessing of the Throats. Two candles are blessed and pressed against the throat as a blessing is said.
Blaise is the patron saint of wild animals because of his care for them and of those with throat maladies.
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