Hieromartyrs Mark the Bishop of Arethusa, Cyril the Deacon; Martyrs Ionas and Varahisios; Saint Diadochos of Photiki

Hieromartyr Mark, Bishop of Arethusa

Hieromartyr Mark, Bishop of Arethusa, suffered for his faith in Christ under the emperor Julian the Apostate (361-363). By order of the emperor Constantine (May 21), Saint Mark had once destroyed a pagan temple and built a Christian church.

When Julian came to the throne, he persecuted Christians and tried to restore paganism. Some citizens of Arethusa renounced Christianity and became pagans. Then Saint Mark’s enemies decided to take revenge on him. The old bishop hid himself from the persecutors at first, but then gave himself up when he learned that the pagans had tortured many people in their search for him.

The holy Elder was led through the city and given over to torture. They tore out his hair, slashed his body, dragged him along the street, dumped him in a swamp, tied him up, and cut him with knives.

The pagans demanded that the holy bishop pay them a large sum of money to rebuild the pagan temple, and he refused to do so. The persecutors invented several new torments: they squeezed the Elder in a foot-press, and they cut off his ears with linen cords. Finally, they smeared the holy martyr’s body with honey and grease, then hung him up in a basket in the hot mid-day sun to be eaten by bees, wasps, and hornets. Saint Mark did not seem to notice the pain, and this irritated the tormentor all the more.

The pagans kept lowering the price he had to pay for their temple, but Saint Mark refused to give them a single coin. Admiring him for his courage and endurance, the pagans stopped asking him for money and set him free. Many of them returned to Christ after hearing his talks.

Saint Gregory the Theologian (January 25) describes the sufferings of Saint Mark in his First Oration against Julian. Theodoritus of Cyrrhus also mentions him in his CHURCH HISTORY (Book 3, Ch. 6)

Martyr Cyril the Deacon

The historian Theodoritus relates that during the reign of Saint Constantine the Great, Saint Cyril destroyed many idols and pagan temples in Heliopolis, Phoenicia. He was put to death for this during the reign of Julian the Apostate. Pagans cut open his stomach and, like wild beasts, they ate his liver and intestines, for which the Lord punished them with blindness, boils and other terrible afflictions.

During this time the pagans killed many Christians in the Palestinian cities of Ascalon and Gaza: priests, women and children who had dedicated themselves to God. The torturers cut up their bodies, covered them with barley and fed them to pigs.

The holy martyrs received crowns of victory in the Kingdom of Heaven, and the torturers also received their just recompense: eternal torment in Hell.

Saint Diadochos of Photiki

Saint Diadochos was born around 400 and served as the Bishop of Photiki in Epirus of Northern Greece. In 451, he took part in the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon as Bishop of Photiki and supported Orthodoxy against the Monophysites.

His signature appears in a letter from 458 addressed to Emperor Leo I, in which he mentions the death of Patriarch Proterius of Alexandria, killed by the Monophysites.

Diadochos’ writing and ascetic practice were influenced by Evagrius the Solitary and Saint Macarius the Great, incorporating ideas of hesychia (stillness, rest, quiet), sensible spiritual experience, and the fierceness of the fight against the demons.

The One Hundred Chapters represent a complete treatise on the spiritual life, the ultimate goal of which is to unite the soul with God through love (chapters 1-2). His writings essentially contain dogmatic teachings and spiritual counsel.

The registration of Saint Diadochos of Photiki in the calendar of the Romanian Orthodox Church has been approved in the working meeting of the Holy Synod in December 2021.

Troparion — Tone 4

You received the heavenly grace of the Spirit, and showed yourself to be a divine Archpastor of Photiki, Diadochos, with true wisdom and action you raised to virtue with the light of divine teaching those inspired by God, who cry unto to you: Glory to Christ who has glorified you, Glory to Him who has crowned you, Glory to Him who through you grants grace and mercy

 

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