St. Esophigus of Thorax (365-401 AD) was the father of mime and liturgical drama. It is said that he followed St. John Chrysostom around and “warmed up” the worshipers with a skit or mime before Chrysostom preached.

St. Esophigus was the first mime to paint his face white. No one knows why he did it and many historians suggest that the churches he performed in didn’t have a clue who he was or what he was supposed to be doing.

The church in Thebes took him out and stoned him. Well, “stoned” was too strong a term. They drug him out of the church and one five-year old threw a rock at him while he was doing the “trapped in a glass box” thing. St. Esophigus immediately improvised his liberation from the box and fled while the crowd ignored him.

His only extant epistle, Propositum Prodigo Ecclesia (“Purpose Motivated Church”), was, by all accounts, a very popular encyclical in the churches of North Africa though Esophigus made very few visits there. According to other writings of that time, it appears that the popularity of Propositum faded after a few years and so Esophigus wrote a series: Propositum Prodigo Vita (“Purpose Motivated Life”), Propositum Prodigo Venum (“Purpose Motivated Sales”), and Propositum Prodigo Vivo Vixi Victum Pestilencia (“Purpose Motivated Staying Alive During a Plague”). Unfortunately we don’t have any copies of these epistles nor are they cited in other works.

St. Esophigus died suddenly and tragically when Chrysostom one day preached from Ezekiel and Esophigus laid on his left side outside the church as a sermon illustration. This went on for a few weeks. Chrysostom moved on after a few days and the church mostly ignored Esophigus who was eventually run over by an ox cart, the driver claimed he hadn’t seen him lying there. After that it became a tradition to take a large step over the threshold when leaving a church in Asia Minor, as if stepping over Esophigus.

In the Eastern Church Esophigus is the patron saint of performance art. In the Roman Catholic Church he is the patron saint of wealthy Christians. He was recently named the patron saint of Rwanda. His feast day is the Friday after Thanksgiving.