I have seen numerous churches that are named after St Methodius but knew very little about him. Recently, in my reading of the Church Fathers, I was able to read his surviving works.
So who is Methodius? The truth is that we do not have a lot of biographical information about him. This may be because of a backlash against his opposition to Origen. He probably died in 311 AD and thus was not present at Nicaea.
Most of what we have about Methodius is found in the summary by Jerome:
Methodius, bishop of Olympus in Lycia and afterwards of Tyre, composed books Against Porphyry written in polished and logical style also a Banquet of the ten virgins, an excellent work On the resurrection, against Origen and On the Pythonissa and On free will, also against Origen. He also wrote commentaries On Genesis and On the Song of Songs and many others which are widely read. At the end of the recent persecution or, as others affirm, in the reign of Decius and Valerianus, he was crowned with martyrdom at Chalcis in Greece.
The popularity of Methodius comes down to his theological work and his martyrdom. There is much that we do not know, but we do have some of his works. One of the themes that he stresses is the importance of chastity for Christians. He does not say that one must be a virgin to be a Christian, but he does strongly argue for the benefits of a chaste life.
