Saints Bretanion and Theotimus, Bishops of Tomis

The Christianity has been spread in Scythia Minor, as Eusebius of Caesarea noted in his Ecclesiastical Story (3,1), through the preaching of Andrew the Apostle. This tradition came from Origenes (Commentary on Genesis 24,9, PG 12, 92). In any case, there are early mentions about the Christian life in this province, so that there are known the Martyrical Acts of Epictetus and Astion (died 290) and together with their martyrium there is also known that 14 days after their death Evangelicus, the first bishop of Tomis, came in Halmyris in order to baptize the parents of saint Astion. There is no more information about this bishop. Anyway, an inscription discovered in 1974 in Constanta (the modern city built on the ruins of Tomis) confirms the existence of a bishop named Titus or Philus during the persecution of Licinius (308-324) who might have died martyrically and who is commemorated on Jaunary 3.  Another bishop named Gordian might have died also during the persecution of Licinius, around 324, together with Sts. Macrobius, Helias, Zoticus, Lucian and Valerian, being commemorated on September 13. In the Roman Martyrology, Gordian (named here as bishop) is commemorated together with Macrobius and Valerian on September 15.  There is also an anonymous Scythian bishop who participated at the first ecumenical synod from Nicaea (325), as Eusebius writes (Life of Constantine III, 7). More information there is known about the next bishops of Tomis, Bretanion and Theotimus.


Saint Bretanion

Saint Bretanion of Tomis, also known as Brettanio, Bretanio or Vetranion is the fourth known bishop of the city at the shore of the Black Sea  (the first being Evangelicus, 295-300), celebrated from the old times on January 25 (Acta Sanctorum Januarii, tom III, Paris 1873, p. 235). He was originally from Cappadocia, being born in a Christian family. There is unknown how he came to be bishop in Tomis, but he was already in his office in 369, when Valens (364-378) knew him personally during his way to Noviodunum, where the emperor closed an armistice with the Goths. Valens stopped in Tomis and visited the cathedral of the capital city of Scythia Minor, moment which he met the bishop and tried to impose to him the arian beliefs. The historian Sozomenos (Historia Ecclesiastica 6,21, Migne, PG 67, 1343-1345) tells about this episode:  “It is said that … the Scythians adhered with firmness to their faith. There are in this country a great number of cities, villages, and fortresses. The metropolis is called Tomi; it is a large and populous city, and lies on the sea-shore to the left of one sailing to the sea, called the Euxine. According to an ancient custom which still prevails, all the churches of the whole country are under the sway of one bishop. Vetranio ruled over these churches at the period that the emperor visited Tomi. Valens repaired to the church, and strove, according to his usual custom, to gain over the bishop to the heresy of Arius; but this latter manfully opposed his arguments, and after a courageous defense of the Nicene doctrines, quitted the emperor and proceeded to another church, whither he was followed by the people. Almost the entire city had crowded to see the emperor, for they expected that something extraordinary would result from this interview with the bishop. Valens was extremely offended at being left alone in the church with his attendants, and in resentment, condemned Vetranio to banishment. Not long after, however, he recalled him, because, I believe, he apprehended an insurrection; for the Scythians were offended at the absence of their bishop. He well knew that the Scythians were a courageous nation, and that their country, by the position of its places, possessed many natural advantages which rendered it necessary to the Roman Empire, for it served as a barrier to ward off the barbarians. Thus was the intention of the ruler openly frustrated by Vetranio. The Scythians themselves testify that he was good in all other respects and eminent for the virtue of his life.” Theodoret of Cyrus tells the same story in his Historia Ecclesiastica (IV,35).
The bishop might be the author of a letter knew as the martyrical act of Saint Sabbas (Sava) from Buzau, celebrated on April 372, who died as a martyr by the hand of the Goths in 372, in the region situated northern of Danube. Saint Basil of Caesarea asked Iunius Soranus, the dux of Scythia Minor, for the relics of the Saint, which probably remained for a while in Tomis in their way to Cappadocia. Anyway there are some voices denying the possible tomitan paternity of this text, because it was written “from the will of the presbytery”, that means a college, which could be only situated in the northern territories: in all Scythia was only one bishop, as cited below. There is one more hypothesis that Bretanion would be the receiver of St. Basil’s thanking letters no. 164 and 165 for the transportation of these Relics, but the evidence (the mention of Ascholius from Thessaloniki) stays against such an hypothesis.
Saint Bretanion probably died on January 25, when he was celebrated and had as his successor the Bishop Gerontius, also known as Terentius or Terennius, who participated at the second Ecumenical Council from Constantinople (381).

Worship of Saint Bretanion

The byzantine synaxaries don’t mention about this saint, but the Roman Martyrology does, commemorating him on January 25. Today he is celebrated in the Romanian Orthodox Church at this date and there is a monastery dedicated to him in the village “23 August” near Constanţa.


Saint Theotimus

Another bishop of Tomis commemorated as saint is Theotimus, who was in office in the second half of the 4th century and the beginning of the next one, being contemporary to some of the Great Fathers such as St. John Chrysostom, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Gregory of Nazianzus. There are no information about his birth and the place where he acknowledged his theological formation but, as contemporary of the locals St. John Cassian and St. Germanus, he might have lived together with them in the cave monasteries of the Cassians. As bishop of Tomis he was elected around 380-395 years after the death of his predecessor, Gerontius, though this fact is also a hypothesis.
 There are some details about him in the works of some contemporary church writers. St.  Jerome is the first who mentions him in his „De viris illustribus”, chapter 131, as in 392 bearing the title "Scythiae Tomorum episcopus." He says that: „Theotimus, bishop of Tomis in Scythia, wrote small treatise in dialogue-form, in old-style eloquence; I hear that he writes other works also”
Among the Greek-speaking Writers, the historian Sozomenos called him „the Scythian Theotimus” which shows that he was a local. Later, Nicephorus Callistus, in the 14th century calls him as „man from Scythian nation and barbarian” (Hist. Eccl. XII, 45, Migne PG 146, col. 908).
Description: Church historian Sozomenos makes a portrait of a great moral sensibility and literary beauty, and also featuring the work of missionary held among barbarian Huns. Here's what he wrote: “The church of Tomi, and indeed all the churches of Scythia, were at this period under the government of Theotimus, a Scythian. He had been brought up in the practice of philosophy; and his virtues had so won the admiration of the barbarian Huns, who dwelt on the banks of the Ister, that they called him the god of the Romans, for they had experience of divine deeds wrought by him. It is said that one day, when traveling toward the country of the barbarians, he perceived some of them advancing towards Tomi. His attendants burst forth into lamentations, and gave themselves up at once for lost; but he merely descended from horseback, and prayed. The consequence was that the barbarians passed by without seeing him, his attendants, or the horses from which they had dismounted. As these tribes frequently devastated Scythia by their predatory incursions, he tried to subdue the ferocity of their disposition by presenting them with food and gifts. One of the barbarians hence concluded that he was a man of wealth, and, determining to take him prisoner, leaned upon his shield, as was his custom when parleying with his enemies; the man raised up his right hand in order to throw a rope, which he firmly grasped, over the bishop, for he intended to drag him away to his own country; but in the attempt, his hand remained extended in the air, and the barbarian was not released from his terrible bonds until his companions had implored Theotimus to intercede with God in his behalf.
It is said that Theotimus always retained the long hair (Kometes) which he wore when he first devoted himself to the practice of philosophy. He was very temperate, had no stated hours for his repasts, but ate and drank when compelled to do so by the calls of hunger and of thirst. I consider it to be the part of a philosopher to yield to the demands of these appetites from necessity, and not from the love of sensual gratification."(Sozomenos, Hist. Eccl. 7,26, in Migne, PG 67, 1497-1500).
This description makes us realize the missionary zeal and the gift of miracles that Theotimus had, but also the harsh circumstances of his mission at Tomis.
Saint Theotimus possessed and practiced the „monastic philosophy” and loved the „asceticism”, which in the Greek culture was associated with the philosophy. On the other hand, the term designating the long hair, „cometes” reminds about the „comati”, the title of which the noble Dacians (locals) were designated.
Another Christian writer, Socrates, said about Saint Theotimus that he was „a bishop celebrated for his piety and rectitude of life” (Socrates, Hist. Eccl. 6,12, Migne, PG 67,701)
During this period there are known some monasteries and hermitages in Scythia Minor, which were famous through their asceticism and who became in the 5th and 6th cnturies known throughout the empire because of the famous „Scythian monks” spread both in the regions situated between Danube and theCarpathians, and in Jerusalem, Constantinople, Rome and Africa. The ruins of their basilicas can be seen until today, being large and beautifully decorated with mosaics. This shows indirectly an impressive number of believers in the Scythian regions in these centuries.
Emperor Arcadius of the Eastern Roman Empire have heard about Theotimus, because of his friendship with St. John Chrysostom. The archbishop of Constantinople sent in 399 some missionary monks „for the nomadic Scythians of the Ister”, probably being asked by Theotimus (Theodoret of Cyrus, Hist. Eccl. 5, 31). These nomads may be in fact the huns and there is supposed that the mission was successfub, because Jerome mentioned that „the Huns learn the Psalter and the coldness of Scythia is warmed by the heat of the faith” (Jerome, Letter 107).
In 399 or 400, Theotimus took part in a local synod of Constantinople, convened by Saint John Chrysostomus against the bishop Antoninus of Ephesus who was condemned for heresy (Palladius of Helenopolis, Life of St. John Chrysostom, in Migne, PG 47, 179). He was very appreciated among other bishops, and this result from the fact that Theotimus is mentioned the first in the list of those who signed the documents of the council.

A few years later it arose a division among the theologians about the religious orthodoxy of the writings of Origenes, who died as a martyr about 150 years before (in 254). Renowned theologians and bishops as Theophilus of Alexandria and Epiphanius of Salamis claimed that Origen's work contains heretical teachings and as such, he must be condemned. Epiphanius came just in Constantinople, trying to convince John Chrysostomus to sign the condemnation of Origenes, but John refused. In the midst of these discussions, Theotimus came in Constantinople and participated at the Synod of the Oak, near Chalcedon, in 403, where he defenced the position of St. John Chrysostomus, blamed for supporting the Origenist monks. Sozomenos wrot that „Theotimus, bishop of Scythia, strongly opposed the proceedings of Epiphanius, and told him that it was not right to cast insult on the memory of one who had long been numbered with the dead; nor was it without blasphemy to assail the conclusion to which the ancients had arrived on the subject, and to set aside their decisions” (Sozomenos, Hist. Eccl. 8,14 in Migne, PG 67,334, cf. Socrates, Hist. Eccl. 6,12, Migne PG 67,701). From these words we can believe that Theotimus enjoyed a great prestige among the theologians, as Socrates reproduces only his opinion on the work of Origenes. Moreover, this history ends his account of Theotimus with the words: „a bishop celebrated for his piety and rectitude of life” cited above (Socrates, Hist. Eccl. 6,12, Migne, PG 67,701)
Jerome attested the written works of Theotimus, but there are not kept until today. Anyway there are some small sentences atributed to Theotimus in a writing of St. John from Damasus (+749) with the title „The saint parallels” (Ta hiera parallela/Sacra parallela): "the one who sins in thought, by the very fastness of the thought, he commits the sin completely, while the deeds of the body can be broken through many barriers” (John of Damascus, Holy parallels, 2,9 in Migne, PG 96, 241 A);”The bad thing is not to suffer harshly, but to suffer according to the righteousness” (ibid, 520B); „Remembering truly about God is to remember the life, and forgetting Him is to die” (ibid, 520B)
The saint died probably in the first years of the 5th century, after the Synod at the Oak held in July 403, where his friend, St. John Chrysostomus was condemned and deposed from his seat.

Worship of  Saint Theotimus 

According to Acta Sanctorum (tom II/Xi, p. 753, Paris, 1866), St. Theotimus is commemorated on April 20 for „his holiness and his miracles”.  Probably the date of the commemoration is the day he might have died. There is a monastery dedicated to St. Theotimus in Murfatlar, near Constanta.
In the both cases of Sts. Bretanion and Theotimus there are no relics known to be held anywhere.

Monastery of St. Theotimus in Constanta

The troparion (hymn) of the both saints is the usual troparion to a hierarch: 

“The truth of things revealed thee to thy flock as a rule of faith, a model of meekness and a teacher of abstinence wherefore thou hast attained the heights through humility and riches through poverty. O hierarch Bretanion (*Theotimus) our father, entreat Christ God that our souls be saved!”

St. Martyrs Ermil (Ermilus) and Stratonicus

The Martyr Saints Ermil and Stratonicus, in Greek ῞Ερμυλος and Στρατόνικος, or in Serbian Свети мученици, Eрмил и Cтратонjк бэлгрaдски (Sts. Martyrs Ermil and Stratonic of Belgrade) lived in 3rd – 4th centuries in the Roman province Illyricum, located on the middle course of the Danube, and received their martyrdom at Singidunum (the today Belgrade), being celebrated on January 13, their day of passage to the Lord. Their life and martyrdom are found in three variants, the earlier probably released in the late sixth century (according to a study published in the introduction to their lives in Analecta Bollandiana, vol 30, pp. 156 ff., and in Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca, N. 744 - 745b). Anyway the five manuscripts of this version are, perhaps from the 10th century. Another biography, which is the current used in the Orthodox churches was processed by Simeon Metaphrastes in his Vitae Sanctorum in the 9th century in Constantinople. It is found in volume 114 of JP Migne's Patrologia Graeca, cols. 554-566. A major study on the three different versions of the biography wrote F. Halkin in Trois textes grecs inédits sur les SS. Hermyle et Stratonice martyrs à Singidunum in Analecta Bollandiana vol 89, 1971, pp. 5-45.

Their martyrdom

The life and martyrdom of saints Ermil and Stratonicus and is closely related to the changing social and political situation of the early fourth century. Diocletian (384-305) is considered one of the fiercest persecutors of the Christians, but even after his death, the fate of the Christians did not change for the better. The coming in charge of Licinius (307-324) in Illyricum, province which included the regions on the middle Danube and the Western Balkans, has brought a new persecution against the Christians. Licinius was together with Constantine the Great, one of the signatories of the Edict of Tolerance (Milan, 313), but he suddenly began a new wave of persecution against Christians. Shortly after taking his office, he asked his officials to denounce the people who respected the „law of Christ” and to bring them before the judgment seat.

St. Ermil, icon in St. Aleksander cathedral from Sofia, Bulgaria

Ermil, a Christian deacon from Singidunum (a city on the Danube), was denounced by a soldier to the local authorities, that he was a Christian, being accused that he was despising the Roman gods and the official cult of the Empire. St. Simeon Metaphrastes reports that Ermil was brought before the Caesar, at his command. Ermil received the accusation with joy and said he would come to the court without opposition, so there was no need to be bound. Brought to the emperor and asked why he do not serve the pagan gods, Ermil replied that he serves „only the invisible God who made the world and not some dull and lifeless gods made with hands from wood or stone”. Hearing this, Licinius ordered that Ermil to be beaten on his face with a metal whip. Asked repeatedly to sacrifice to the Roman gods, the saint ignored the torments and refused the offer, confessing God as his savior.

After heavier tortures, the Caesar commanded that the saint to be taken to prison, where he would have three days as time to think on his final position. But here it came to him an angel of the Lord who comforted him, saying „Dare, Ermil and not be fear, for you will soon overcome the tyrant and you will receive the bright crown of martyrdom!”

After three days of prison, Ermil was brought back to the court and asked if he changed his mind. But he again confessed his Christian faith. Then he was beaten and tortured even more terrible, but he endured all without uttering a single groan. Instead he praised incessantly his Lord. At one point it was heard a voice from heaven and the soldiers who tortured him told this to Licinius. The voice announced that over three days Ermil would be free from pain. Licinius was frightened by the news came from the soldiers, but he still ordered the deacon to be taken back into the prison.

All these facts witnessed Stratonicus the prison warden where Ermil was closed. He was also secretly a Christian and knew the deacon already since long ago. He looked stealthily the wounds of the deacon.

St. Ermil was brought for the third time to trial and again he refused to deny his faith. Of course, the emperor ordered the soldiers to tear deep the deacon’s body and especially his womb with iron nails. But the saint remained steadfast in the faith.

One of the soldiers has seen that Stratonicus was crying and cared the injuries of the deacon, and defeated him to Licinius. This fact made the Caesar to ask Stratonicus to sacrifice to idols, but he also confessed that he was an old friend of Ermil and a hidden Christian who refuses the sacrifice to the fake idols. For this confession, Stratonicus was stripped of his clothes and beaten with sticks. During the beating he turned to Ermil, asking him to pray to God, in order to be kept in his faith and to be able to endure the torments.

After this torture, the two were taken back into prison and later Licinius tried once more to persuade them to deny the faith, but without success. Finally, the emperor decided Ermil to be hung in a tree and his body to be chopped with knives, and thrown into the Danube.

image from the Menologion of Basil II - Constantinople, 985

Brought to trial, Stratonicus didn’t accept the last proposal.  He confessed that he doesn’t know a happier death than enduring martyrdom for the faith in Christ and that the greatest joy for him would be to accompany in the eternal life his good friend, Ermil. So he was also killed.

The martyrdom of Ermil and Stratonicus happened on January 13, 314 or 315 (according to the Russian Orthodox encyclopedia Православнуя энциклопедия), 18 stages (about 3 km) away from Singidunum (Belgrade today). Their bodies were recovered from the waters of the Danube three days later, by the local Christians. They have put the two saints together in one coffin, in order that they would be together remembered, because they were joined in their faith in Christ and friendship.

According to some other sources, the two saints died in 303, that means before the Great Persecution of Diocletian and Galerius. This date cannot be accepted, because in this way the events would have been occurred before Licinius (307 -324).

Worship

In the old Byzantine synaxaries the celebrations of the two saints were on January 13 and June 1st. But this date is not always remembered the same. In a Palestinian-Georgian calendar from the 10th century (Sinaiticus Georgian manuscris no. 34) the memory of the saints is on January 14. The Martyrology of Jerome remembers a martyr named Hermilus on August 3, without mentioning the place of the martyrdom. In some other Western Martyrologies from the 9th century (Florus, Usuard, Adon from Vienna) the name of the martyr is written as Hermellus,and his place of death is Constantinople. Baronius, based on the Byzantine synaxarion introduced in the Roman Martyrology the memory of Ermil and Stratonicus on January 13, but also on August 3 (the memory of Hermellus from Constantinople alone). 

The nationality of the two saints is uncertain. The Romanian synaxaries attest that they would have been Daco-Romans (local Romans, maybe Romanized Dacians or Thracians), but in the meantime the Serbian ones attest a supposedly Slavic origin, which is totally improbable, because there were no Slavs in the Area at the time.

Their skulls were located in the Cathedral of Saint Sophia from Constantinople by a Russian pilgrim named Anthony, about in 1200. Today there is no mention about their relics, as far I have researched.

Today the Holy Martyrs Ermil and Stratonicus are the patron saints of the Serbian capital - Belgrade. The Museum of Belgrade celebrate Sts. Ermil and Stratonicus as patrons of the institution and a paraklis (chapel) of the Cathedral of St. Sava in Belgrade) is dedicate to these Holy Martyrs. 

Troparion (hymn) of the martyrs:

Thy Martyrs, O Lord, in their struggles received crowns of incorruptibility from Thee our God: for with Thy strength they wiped out tyrants, and overcame demons, rendering them powerless. By their intercessions, O Christ our God, save our souls!

St. Antipa from Calapodeşti and Valaam

Saint Antipa, a monk who lived in the nineteenth century in Moldova, Mount Athos and Valaam Monastery in Russia, is known as „Antipa from Calapodeşti” in Romania, or „Antipa from Valaam” in Russia.

His life he was written by Pimen, abbot of the Monastery of Valaam in northern Russia and a former disciple of the saint, and later included into the so-called "Paterikon (Book containing the lives of the fathers) of Valaam” . The abbot stated that the the parents of the saint were holy close to the church’s life. His father, George Constantin Luchian was a deacon at the church Calapodeşti - village, situated somewhere in the hills region between Bacau and Bârlad - and his mother, Ecaterina Manase later became nun Elizabeth. The couple had no children for a long time, but eventually, their prayers have been answered and God has given them a child in 1816, which they have christened as Alexander, the baptism ceremony being celebrated in the village church.
In the writing about the monks from Valaam monastery saints there is told that the child Alexandru had had unusual powers, so that he got poisonous snakes in his hands and, to the surprise and horror of all, they haven’t done any harm to him.
He taught at the village school book, and this time his father died, leaving him an orphan. To live, he had to learn the art of binding books to help support the family also.
At the age of 20 years, "without warning he was overwhelmed with inexpressible and glorious light, which filled his heart with untold joy". Soon he left his family and went to Neamţ Monastery, one of the largest convents in Moldova, but he was not accepted by the abbot form here. He then went to a monastery in Wallachia; it seems to be Căldăruşani, where it was in high esteem the Athonite monastic order, imposed by Elder Paisie from Neamţ (1722-1794) and his apprentice, Gheorghe from Cernica (1730-1806). Here Alexander was accepted as a novice and later the abbot tonsured him, giving him the name Alipie (Alypios).
At age of 20 he entered the monastery of Brazi, where he led a life of deprivation for two years. Soon he received a much respected charisma in the Eastern tradition, namely the "gift of tears". The hermit Gideon who has been living in seclusion already from 30 years, became his professor for the incessant practice of the "mental prayer" (also known as „Jesus Prayer”, containing the words: „Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner”).

As a novice at Brazi, in 1842, he witnessed the discovery of the relics of Metropolitan Theodosius and wrote how that has happened (see the article about St. Teodosie from Brazi, celebrated on September 22).
The saint remained at Brazi for two years and later went to the Holy Mountain of Athos, the "University” of the Eastern Monks. Hes stopped first near a cell of two Romanian monks near Lacu hermitage and later settled in Esphigmenou, where he served for four years in the kitchen.
.During this period he received "great schema" of monasticism, which requires strict fasting, uninterrupted prayer and worship, being once more tonsured as "skimonachos (hermit monk, or in english „skemamonk”) Antipa”. Soon he was ordained deacon and then priest (that means, his title was now „hieroskemamonk”), living in an isolated cell.
After about 20 years at Athos, in 1860, Antipa moved to the new hermitage called Prodromu, a Romanian skete founded by two Moldovan monks, Nifon and Nectarie, finished and consecrated in 1863. Antipa was asked to go to Moldova and raise aid for the completion of the building work, so he setteled for a while in Bucium Metoc from Iaşi, the capital city of Moldova (metoc, or in Greek, metokion, is a monastic dependency placed in a town under the jurisdiction of a monastery, which provides food and money for the monastery’s needs). First appointed for the administration and later as confessor of this dependency, his name comes to be known here, so many believers started to see him as a true example of humility, love and truly Christian living. His strict fasting (he would not eat for days on end), seriousness, zeal, love, kindness and humility (which he kept even in the midst of arguments which still happened) drew people to him. It is said that Metropolitan Sofronie (Miclescu) of Moldova particularly respected him and that that respect was mutual.

Valaam monastery and its churches

Fr Nifon had the idea of going to Russia to get financial help for the skete, taking with him none other than the humble and wise Antipa. This is the way how Antipa went to Russia. He stopped in Kiev, in order to worship the relics of the saints from Pecerska Lavra, then went to Moscow, and finally to St. Petersburg, where he received many aids from various metropolitans, abbots of monasteries and another Christian believers. He was honored especially by Metropolitans Isidore of St Petersburg and Philaret of Moscow. They were themselves spiritual man, the second was canonized as a saint and is celebrated on 19 November.

Antipa was found worthy to take part in the finding of other relics, namely those of St Tikhon of Zadonsk and invited to take part in the procession by Metropolitan Isidore in person.
There is more to say that St. Antipa had a special piety for the Mother of God who, as the traditions state, showed to him and helped on many occasions and in special needs. That happened once more when Antipa went to Valaam Monastery, situated on an island of Ladoga Lake, near Finland, which impressed him in a particular way. Wherefore, after sending the aids to Prodromu Hermitage in November 1865, he sat forever at Valaam, in cell from the hermitage dedicated to All Saints. He continued here his spiritual struggles, and tried to be useful in the congregation. He has come to receive the Holy Spirit's gifts of prophecy and vision in spirit.

He was of exemplary asceticism. In his cell there was no bed or chair and he used just a rough blanket on the floor. He used not to taste or to drink anything on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year, and in the first week of Lent, and for the other days it was enough for him the food he received Saturdays at noon.
Due to his chosen life, he came to be known in the northern Russia and many monks and believers used to visit him for special services and sermons. Under his direction there were formed many disciples, who followed him into his spiritual path.
After 17 years of this way of living, on January 10, 1882, aged 66 years, the Venerable Antipa passed away foreknowing three days earlier about that. After another sources, he would have suffered an apoplectic attack. He was buried in a crypt of the monastery of Valaam, near the chapel in honor of the Passion of Christ, where the pilgrims could easily come and celebrate his requiem.


The veneration of St. Antipa

 Being known and honored by all for his worthiness, the Abbot Pimen, one of his disciples, wrote and printed the saint’s life in 1883 in St. Petersburg, under the title: "The Life worthy of the memory of Venerable („ieroskimonah”) Antipa”. The book quickly spread and was printed again in 1893.
His fame as a saint was maintained both in Russia and Mount Athos, by those who knew him in life or from the book. So that, in 1906 (24 years after his death) the Russian monks from the monastery of St. Panteleimon of Mount Athos (also known as Rusikon), wrote in Church Slavon his liturgical sevice into the Russian Menologion for January 10. It is therefore sanctification without a formal act of canonization, only by writing his name in the Menologion.

Relics of the Saint in Valaam Monastery

In accordance with his will, he was interred outside the walls of the skete, so that the pilgrims and
Spiritual children who revered him would have unfettered access to his grave. In 1960, locals opened Elder Antipas’ grave with the intent of looting it. Signs of that disinterment remained over the years prior to the restoration of monastic life in Valaam. In May 14, 1991 the relics of the Venerable Antipa were uncovered, and were found to spread a strong myrrh scent. They were moved, after the memorial service, to the church of Sergius and Herman of Valaam, on September 24 (11) 1991, where there are until today.

Valaam monastery

In Romania, the monk Antipa was until recently less known than in Russia. Therefore his name was wrote much later into the Romanian calendars, namely in 1992, being celebrated on January 10 (the day of his death, corresponding in the Russian Church Calendar with 23 January). In 1997 the local Christians founded a monastery at Calapodeşti, dedicated to All Saints Sunday (the first after Pentecost) and St. Antipa, who was born here.
The Relics of Saint Antipa are at Valaam Monastery in Russia, as stated above, but small parts of relics can be found in other places such as Christiana Monastery in Bucharest, Suruceni monastery in Moldova (the right arm) and the monastery of Calapodeşti.

Calapodeşti church

Troparion (hymn) of the Saint

You showed yourself as most wise adviser of monks and earthly angel, Holy Father Blessed Antipa, restraining your body with the passionless and illuminating the hearts of believers with the glow of your virtues. Therefore you have made yourself a honored place of the Holy Spirit, and in heaven you found God’s reward for your labors, whom ask to grant us great mercy!

Relics of the Saint in Calapodeşti, Romania

Relics of the Saint in Calapodeşti, Romania

Another troparion of the Saint

Arching over the earth like a rainbow, you got from the Holy Mountain Athos into the north, at Valaam. O Holy Father Antipa, much praised, you made yourself as the wonderful Old Men of Moldova, and now you are living in the heavenly glory of Valaam. Ask Christ our God to counsel us to the angelic life!

Saint Melania the younger, from Rome, and her grandmother, Saint Melania the Elder

Saint Melania of Rome, also known as Melania “the Younger” (or “Minor”) is the holy woman, one of the first nuns, who is celebrated in the last day of the calendar. She is named “of Rome” because she was born in Rome c. 383, but died in Jerusalem, in 439).Her name as “younger” discerns between her, and her paternal grandmother, Melania the Great or the Elder, also a nun and a monastery founder.

Melania the Elder

But before speaking about Saint Melania the Younger, celebrated today, please allow me to introduce in a few sentences her grandmother, a very important saint for the whole Christian asceticism.
Saint Melania the Elder or the Great (“Maior”, 325–410) was a Desert Mother with a great influence among the most famous monks from the 4th century. She was born in Spain, in a wealthy family, being married at fourteen with a man named Valerius Maximus Basilius, with whom she lived near Rome. Shortly being widow and losing also two out of their three sons,when she was only 22 years old, Melania moved with her remaining son, Valerius Publicola (the father of the future Melania the Younger), to Rome. Here she lived a pious life in a house organized almost like a monastery, but after a while she decided to go to Alexandria, in order to meet the famous ascetics from the desert. Probably she met some other fathers from the Egyptian Desert, but surely she was familiar with Abba Macarius, with St. Augustin and, St. Paulinus of Nola (her cousin or cousin-in-law), who offers in his letter a description of her visit to Nola.
After the death of Bishop Athanasius in 373 it started a persecution against the monks and many of them were exiled to Palestine, Melania went with them to aid them, visiting them in prison by night disguised in a slave's hood.After this persecution, Melania arrived in Jerusalem, where she founded a monastery on the Mount of Olives, together with Tyrannius Rufinus. Here she lived a very hard ascetic life. Among other, here she met Saint Jerome, but also Evagrius Ponticus, a monk who left Constantinople after a forbidden love affair, and who later, at Melania’s insistence, went to Egypt and lived an ascetic life in the desert of Kellia. Because of her involvement as a pro-Origenist in the controversy over Origen in the 390s, Jerome was especially acid writing about her, mocking her name and calling her "black in name and black in nature”, because Melania means in Greek, “black”.
Once more Melania went to Rome to see her son remained here, and who had married Caeionia Albina, and who had a daughter, also named Melania (the Younger). After this moment, the old nun returned to Palestine in 404 and died in 410 in Jerusalem, being regarded as a saint and celebrated on June 8.

St. Melania the Younger

Melania the Younger

Valerius Publicola, the son of Melania the Elder remained in Rome, in the care of the wealthy relatives and married later Caeionia Albina. Together they had a daughter named Melania, after her grandmother. Melania the Younger was married ratherly by force at the insistence of their parents, as the only inheritor of their wealth. Her marriage, when she was only 13 years old, with her paternal cousin, Valerius Pinianus, aged 17, was a formal one. In spite of her wish to bear an ascetic life, they had two children, a daughter and a son, who died very soon. Her own life was in danger after the second birth, and in this moment Melania and her husband swore to live further only as brother and sister. They left Rome, gave their wealth to the poor and lived further in a village like ascetics. At this time they were 24, respectively 20 years old. Anyway at the time everything they still had it was taken by force by Severianus, brother of Valerius Pinianus, because after a law they were not allowed to waste their wealth without the consent of the relatives. The empress Verena heard about such an injustice and asked Melania to come to her at the palace. After a tradition, no woman was allowed to enter the palace of the empress having her head covered, but Melania did so, showing her ascetic life. The empress admired her and their ascetic life, and gave an order to let them to do what they want with their properties. So they sold further everything, giving to the poor not only in Rome, but sending in some eastern countries.
Melania and Pinianus left Rome in 408, living a monastic life near Messina (Sicily) for two years. In 410, they traveled further to Africa, where they befriended Augustine of Hippo and devoted themselves to a life of piety and charitable works. Together they founded a convent of which Melania became superior, and cloister of which Pinianus took charge.
In 417 Melania and her husband traveled to Palestine, where they visited among others the Holy Sepulchre from Jerusalem. After a while, hearing about the ascetic life of the Desert Fathers in Egypt, Melania went to Alexandria, in order to visit some of them and to learn more about a holy life. There is a story in the famous ascetic book comprising the sayings of the Fathers (Apophthegmata Patrum) in which Saint Arsenius the Roman is presented as being visited by a Roman wealthy woman, in my opinion no one else than Melania. Arsenius refused to accept her visit, but then she insisted by asking the authority of patriarch Theophilus. Finally, “when she had reached the old man's cell, by a dispensation of God, he was outside it. Seeing him, she threw herself at his feet. Outraged, he lifted her up again, and said, looking steadily at her, 'If you must see my face, here it is, look.' She was covered with shame and did not look at his face. Then the old man said to her, 'Have you not heard tell of my way of life? It ought to be respected. How dare you make such a journey? Do you not realise you are a woman and cannot go anywhere? Or is it so that on returning to Rome you can say to the other women: I have seen Arsenius? Then they will turn the sea into a thoroughfare with women coming to see me.' She said, 'May it please the Lord, I shall not let anyone come here, but pray for me and remember me always.' But he answered her, 'I pray to God to remove remembrance of you from my heart.' Overcome at hearing these words, she withdrew…” (Arsenius 28)

Melania visited also some other Fathers, but many of them refused her offerings. Anyway she came back with a curious gift from Abba Macarius the Great. After a story told independently by three different authors (Palladius, Timothy of Alexandria and the anonyme author of the Apophthegmata Patrum), Abba Macarius was once visited by a hyena who tried to convince him to come in her cave. Macarius went there, where he saw the blind offspring of the wild animal, which he cured through prayer. The second day, the hyena came to him with a wooly skin of a ram or a sheep. This skin was used as a fur in the cold winters by Melania until her death.
Melania went back to Palestine living in the hermitage of her grandmother, Melania the Elder, near the Mount of Olives. Here she was visited by her former husband and by her mother, also here, only once a week, because she decided to live as a secluded. After some time her mother, Albina, died, and soon also Pinianus (c. 420). Melania built then a cloister for men and a church, where she spent the remainder of her life.
In 436 she went to Constantinople, after receiving a letter from her uncle Volusian, who was ill and wanted to see her, and during this trip she convinced her uncle to baptize. She met here the emperess Eudokia, who later visited Jerusalem in 437 and, counseled by Melania, made some important donations for different churches in Palestine. The last years are dominated by her apostolic mission of counseling, but also curing miraculously different sick persons.
During the Feasts of the Nativity in 439, Melania knew that her death will occur soon. She participated to the Holy Liturgy of Christmas, met her close friends and gave them the last advices, dying soon, on December 31 the same year. On this day she is commemorated in both the Eastern and Western Churches. Her monastery resisted until 614, when it was destroyed by the Persians.

The Tomb of St. Melania in Jerusalem

The veneration of Saint Melania and her Relics

The life of Melania was written in Greek by a monk named Gerontius. There are some other (shorter) lives in Historia Lausiaca of Palladius and in the work of Peter the Iberian.
Today the tomb of Saint Melania is situated in the Monastery of Megale Panagia in Jerusalem. This sacred place is particular by the fact that the door to the monastery is very small. Her relics are to be found in the place where it is supposed to be her old stone cell, in fact a narrow cave. Together with the relics there are kept her chains that she wore under her cassock.

Troparion (hymn) of Saint Melania of Rome 

The image of God was truly preserved in you, O Mother,for you took up the Cross and followed Christ. By so doing, you taught us to disregard the flesh, for it passes away; but to care instead for the soul, since it is immortal. Therefore your spirit, O holy Mother Melania, rejoices with the angels!

 

The Theology of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist

In order to be able to write an article about the theology of John the Evangelist, I should read at least a small part of the very huge theological literature written about this marvelous man, traditionally also known as the beloved apprentice, the theologian of love or, more popular, Saint John the Theologian. In the following I must confess I have not read so much about this saint. Except the fourth Gospel, the three epistles and the Apocalypse, I can count some introductions to these biblical books, some general commentaries to the New Testament, some encyclopedic articles and a few other articles on the topic. I may add here the Life of Saint John the Evangelist, as it appears in the collections of the lives of the saints, according to the Orthodox tradition. That means this article cannot pretend to be more than a simple essay.

There is a special thing to mention about the name of the saint. At least the Eastern Church has not so many saints bearing the title of “The theologian”. In fact, there are only three examples: John, traditionally the author of the biblical books already named above, St. Gregory of Nazianzus (329–390), retired archbishop of Constantinople during the second ecumenical Council (381) and author of the well-known “Five theological speeches” against the arianists, and Symeon “The New Theologian” (949–1022), a monk from Stoudion, the famous elite monastery in Constantinople. There is to be noted that the former one was first named as “new theologian” only in mockery for his style of writing and his mysticism, which was not quite well seen at his time.

Another Theologian: St. Gregory of Nazianzus

What is common to these three Theologians of the Church is their special connection to the Person and activity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. John wrote exceptionally about the God of love, Who has incarnated himself and came in the world in order to save his beloved human beings from death and corruption. Gregory came in Constantinople as a more symbolical bishop of the Nicaean community, which resumed at that time to a single-group meeting in the Chapel of the Anastasis, all the others Christians of the capital city (arianists) denying Jesus Christ as God and co-substantial with the Father. Traditionally, Gregory spoke about Jesus Christ in such a way, that at the end of his office (which lasted about only 3 years!) it remained in Constantinople only one arianist community, the others accepting the truth of the Orthodox faith, which prevailed after the second ecumenical Council. Symeon wrote some treatises about the divine light and, against the rationalist trend of his age, he promoted a Jesus of the hearts, instead of speaking in the philosophical way about the divine Word of Life.

the new Theologian, St. Symeon

Let’s remain focused on John, “one of the disciples, whom Jesus loved” (John 13,23). Today there are also a lot of doubts about the fact that this disciple is one and the same person with the author of the Gospel traditionally put onto his name. The fact that the original Greek manuscripts attested the gospel as “according to John”, but saying nothing about his quality (disciple, apostle, presbyter, etc…), made some modern commentators to doubt that this is John the Apostle, son of Zebedee. The number of the arguments for this doubt grows every year, but I don’t intend to make from that the theme of my essay. The doubts are even bigger in what concerns the epistles, but his paternity on the Apocalypse is almost generally denied in the Western Churches, mostly in the scholar circles. In this situation it would be hard to remain with something from the disciple who assisted, as the only one remaining, to the Crucifixion of his Master (John 19,26: he is once more named as “the disciple standing by, whom he loved”) and probably to the burial, also one of the first to known, together with Peter, about the empty Tomb (John 20, 2: here he is “the other disciple, whom Jesus loved”; John 20,8). But I don’t share this opinion, because of some reasons which may appear subjective.

The Gospel

The author of the fourth Gospel wrote the well-known Prologue, the one starting with the words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…All things were made by him; and without him was nothing made that was made.”, an incredible parallel to the Book of Genesis, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth…” (Gen. 1,1). Matter fact, the author of the Gospel rewrites the Genesis or, better said, he completes the text in the way the Jewish Rabbis used to write commentaries known as Midrashim and Targumim. The fourth Gospel intends to say, since the beginning, that Jesus Christ is not only the expected Messiah, but the Word of God, co-substantial with God and a-temporal, a-spatial as His Father, the Almighty. The Word of God is the One in whom there is “life”, and this life is “the light of men” (1, 4), which “shines in darkness”, impossible to be drowned into the darkness (1,5) and the one who “lighteth every man that came into the world” (1,9). This complex description of the divine Logos beyond the all created, but not stranger from them, reveals a profound theologian who knew deeply what meant for him and for the all humankind the knowledge of God, knowledge beyond reason. I wonder who could understand so good the deepness of God - who reveals himself in the world in the light inside every human being – if not the “the disciple whom Jesus loved”, whom Jesus might have shared such a mysterious teaching about a crazy God who decided to die for his humans? The author of the Gospel is one of the – probably not so many, at least at the beginning – ones who received him, and to whom the divine Word “gave them the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1,12-13).

According to the “hypothetical John the Evangelist” - whoever he might have been, but at least the author of this fantastic theological treatise also known as “the Prologue of John” -, the ones who believe in the mission of the divine Word who “was made flesh, and dwelt among us […] full of grace and truth” (John 1,14) – which God may dwell among his creature, if not the Love itself? –, these crazy believers in the Crucified God are not anymore born as natural, but as supernatural beings, destined to become sons of God.

The God of John the Evangelist offers his flesh to be eaten and his blood to be drunk, in fact even crazier, he says to the anyway conservative auditorium that “except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you” (John 6,53), speaking about the future Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, the miraculous possibility in how even we today, 2000 years later, may share the divinity in such a deep way.

The God of John the Evangelist weeps when his human beings are dying, even if he knows the fact that the Resurrection will come soon. He knows what does it mean to hear about a friend who died (John11,35: “And Jesus wept”), image which is wonderfully completed with Jesus’ attitude in front of the death of a son (Luke 7,11-17) or a daughter (Matthew 9, 18–26, Mark 5,21–43 and Luke 8,40–56).

Jesus of John the Evangelist is the one who accepts - from love - the deep penitence of the sinful woman who anointed the feet of the Master (John 12,3), without even knowing (she) that she prophesized the sudden death of the Divine Logos.

John mentions once so many times about the Jesus as the incarnation of the divine Love. After the Resurrection, Jesus asks three times his disciple Peter if he loves him, to whom Peter answers positively.  After being urged to follow his master, Peter “turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper…” and asked him, what would be happen with this one. Jesus gave him an unclear answer: “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me!” (John 21,20-22). In the end, the author of the Gospel reveals himself as the very mysterious disciple: “This is the disciple who testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true…” (John 21,24)

The Epistles

The three Epistles of John are written in the same manner as the Gospel and have the same theme, namely to present Jesus Christ as God and the incarnated Love in the world, the one who remains among us, if we respect the commandment of loving each other. The Prologue of the first Epistle astonishes by its similarity with the one of the Gospel: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; for the life was manifested, and we have seen it…” (1 John 1,1-2). The same opposition between the light and the darkness as in the Gospel is presented here even stronger: “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” and “if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (verses 5 and 7). The importance of the Eucharistic communion is stated here as in the Gospel. Once more, as the Gospel shows that the World didn’t know him (John 1,10), the same idea is followed in the first epistle (1 John 3,1). There are some other similar ideas, such as the opposite to God as the sons of the devil and the followers of the antichrist (Gospel 8, 37-45 : 1^st Epistle 2,16-18; 2^nd Epistle 1,7; 3^rd Epistle 1,11), the importance of love among the brothers (Gospel, 1^st Epistle 3,14), after the Commandment of Love (Gospel 13, 34-35 and 15,12-13: 1^st Epistle 3,16,23; 2^nd Epistle 1,6), the urge to remain into the Lord, as the single way that Lord remains into us (Gospel 15,4: 1^st Epistle 3,24). In spite of knowing God as Love and Light, who died for us and who remains in us, if we ask for that (Gospel 15,7 : 1^st Epistle 4,10), John states that no one have seen God (Gospel 1,18: 1^st Epistle 4,12).

The Apocalypse

In what it concerns the Apocalypse, the purpose of such a book is clearly different to the one in the Gospel and the Epistles. The difference of style, ideas and even lexica is quite normal. A prophetical book would use images and situations in quite a new manner, so if we may try to make a parallel to the Gospel, then we will see more differences than similarities. One of the important “signs” that John of the Apocalypse may be another John, is the fact that he calls himself not as “apostle”, “disciple”, “evangelist”, but “I, John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation….” (Apoc. 1,9). In contrast I would like to attest the - ideational if not lexical - parallel between the prologue of the first Epistle, cited above, and the one of the Apocalypse “…[John], who confessed the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw” (Apoc. 1,2).The Son of Man, allusion to the prophetic book of Daniel, is always encircled in such a light, almost impossible to be seen (Apoc. 1, 14 and 16), as in the Gospel and even more in the first Epostle. The whole book of Revelation is presented as a battle between the ones (not so many) who confess the Lord and fight on his side against the forces of evil, antichrist, the beast/dragon and the devil himself, thing which is also quite familiar in the Gospel but especially in the Epistles.

A modern German specialist in the New Testament Studies notes in his Einleitung in das Neue Testament (5^th Ed., Vandehoek, Göttingen, 2005, 617 pp) that the author of the Apocalypse has two main sources, namely the books of the Old Testament (esp. the Prophets and the Psalms) and the Liturgy, because John makes a lot of allusions to Sunday, Altar, rituals, Eucharist, texts composed in antiphonic hymns,doxologies, treishagions, “axios”-acclamations, prayers of thanking. But even more important as the sources used by the author, is the fact that all is about the Kingdom of God about to come, a concept which is also present in John’s Gospel, twice in connection with the mission of John the Baptist (3,3; 3,5) and once in connection to the Passions of Jesus ( 18,36). The so often invoked image of the Lamb in the Apocalypse is present in the confession of the same Baptist about Jesus (1,36), with the special mention that the Gospel uses for this image the word “amnos”, a synonym of “arneion”, as it appears in the Apocalypse, used also as a sign of the different paternity of the two works. Anyway the Lamb as the one, who offers himself for the sake of the world, is a common image of the Gospel and the prophetic book. The idea of the brotherly love, omnipresent in the Gospel and in the Epistle, marks a parallel to the idea of the brotherly communion in the Church, in the Apocalypse (2,20; 7,3; 19,2.5; 22,3).

One more thing I would like to note about the Apocalypse. If the Gospel is intended to mark a parallel to the Genesis, the Revelation ends in the same manner, presenting the New Jerusalem as the new Paradise of the Lord, from which we cannot miss the special elements: the wonderful river (Apoc. 22,1 cf. Gen. 2,10), the trees (among them, the Tree of Life, Apoc. 21,23 and 22,2, cf. Gen. 2,9), the precious stones (Apoc. 21,13.19-21 cf. Gen 2,11), men as kings (Apoc. 21,24 cf. Gen. 2,8.19), the presence of God (Apoc. 21,24, cf. Gen 3,8), cherubs (21,12 cf. Gen. 3,24), peace and innocence (Apoc. 21,1-6, cf. Gen. 2,13) etc.

Da Vinci: The Last Supper

Theology of divine Love

The theological ideas in the book of Apocalypse would need another article. I would say, as the modern Western commentators, that there are so many differences between this book and the Gospel, but also similarities. It depends which position would take anyone of us. I would prefer the traditional one, according to which, the two books are johannine in the same manner. I would see positively the differences between them, as complimentary and caused by their different intention and type of communication. Without intending to say that I am right, I would better say that these books make an original and round image of John the Apostle, a man interested about what does it mean the divine love, how can we, the mortals, attend the divine love and that light which is usually situated beyond our power of knowledge. An apostle interested about how the World was created and how it would end, who had a round image of the kosmos being restored in the end in an even more glorious way as in the beginning. An apostle interested about how it was possible that the divine Word became flesh, suffered and died for us, but also resurrected and reigns in his Kingdom, waiting for us to follow him. The Apostle has observed this way of waiting as active: God shares himself in his flesh and blood, in order to make to us the spring of the living water accessible. The same God loves us and waits from us the same love not only directed to him, but to all the living creatures. Shortly, this man cannot be another than the Apostle of Love, John, the son of the Thunder.

Saint Eleutherios bishop of Illyricum

(Eleutherius or Eleftherios)

Saint Eleutherius of Illyricum is one of the western martyrs of the first centuries who receive until today a special veneration in both the Eastern and the Western Church. The complexity of this vita in the fact that hei s confused, if not in his biographies, at least in the public veneration, with Saint Liberator and Pope Eleutherius in the West and with St. Eleutherios Koubikoularios in the East.
This article refers to Saint Eleutherius, traditionally known as bishop and Illyricum and Roman citizen. The life and the martyrdom of St. Eleutherius and of his mother Anthia (or Evanthia) differs after two types of sorces, the Greek ones (registered in Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca, I, pp. 173-74, nn. 568-71b), and the Latin ones (in Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina, I, p. 368, nn. 2450-52).

The Greek Martyrdom of Saint Eleutherius and of his mother, Anthia

According to the Greek source (about the 5th century, probably written in one of the Greek monasteries from Italy), which was „romanticized” by St. Symeon Metaphrastes in the 10th century (version available in Synaxarium Constantinopolitanum), St. Eleutherius was born in Rome in the latter years of the 1st century. His father Eugenius was a consul of the Roman Emperor, and his mother Anthia was a Christian, who used to know personally at a time St. Paul the Apostle, who might have converted her to the Christianity. Anthia gave to her child a proper education in the spirit of Our Lord’s teachings. Anthia became a widow at an early age. She then sent her son to Anicetus, the bishop (pope) of Rome (c. 150 – c. 167) for his care. The holy man recognized the special spiritual gifts of the young boy and ordained him a deacon at the age of 15, quite a young age especially for this period. Shortly he ordained him as priest when being only 18 and already as bishop of Illyricum at 20.

Saint Eleutherius. From the Menologion of Basil II, 11th century

During the reign of the Emperor Hadrian (117-138), Eleutherius already began to produce rumor at the imperial court because he was winning many converts to Christianity. Shortly he was considered to be an "enemy of the state", and a general („comes”) named Felix was sent to arrest and bring him to Rome for trial. Entering inside the church where Eleutherios was preaching during the Holy Liturgy, the heart of Felix was touched by the words of the young bishop and became a Christian. Anyway Eleutherios returned to Rome together with Felix, where he was arrested and tortured. The dialogue between St. Eleutherius and the emperor Hadrian follows the classical way to be seen in many vitae of the martyrs, as a play in which the saint does not feel any pain and the torturer becomes even worse in his madness.  Emperor Hadrian is presented rather in the comic form of mad tyrant, than as in the historical narratives and this image is even more emphasized by Symeon Metaphrastes.
 The tortures of St. Eleutherios consist in putting him on a hot copper bed, later on an iron grill, then in a huge pan filled with wax, tar and tallow and finally in a hot copper oven. All those tortures prove to be inefficient, because St. Eleutherius remains unharmed after his prayers and through the miraculous intervention of the Lord. During the late torture even the one that came with the idea of it, an „eparch” (ruler of a province) named Coremon suddenly converts to the Christianity and is punished to death by beheading. After all these tortures, Eleutherius is sent to prison and punished by hungering, but an angel sent by God nourishes him as Daniel in the lions’ den. Hadrian thinks to another torture and commands to bring some wild horses and to bind the saint to them, in order to be dragged by them over until death. Anyway the saint escapes and for a short period he lives in a cave in the mountains with the wild beasts which don’t harm him. Finally the saint is caught once more by some hunters and brought to the emperor who ordains his beheading, happened on December 15 (after the latin sources, on April 18) in the year 120 A.D., along with his new convert Felix. His blessed mother Anthia fearlessly comes to grieve over the body of her martyred son, and she too suffers the same fate. The faithful Christians from Illyricum (diocese) come and take their bodies, burying them with honor.


The Latin version

The Latin tradition already mentioned consist in two different redactions, one called „Reatica” due the mention of the burial of Eleutherius and Anthia in Reata (now Rieti), another „Aecana” (after Aikos or Aecana, now Troia, in Puglia, south Italy), which mentions this town instead.
These manuscripts are dated in the late 8th – early 9th century, from which the „Reatica” follows narrowly the Greek variant, except the story of the burial. In this edition, the bishop of Reata, Primus, takes the bodies of martyrs and buries them in the fields of Urbanian on the Salt Road (1 mile from Reata and 61 from Rome). In the „Aecana” version, which omits the historical details and tells nothing even about the birthplace of Eleutherius, the episcopacy of the saint is not associated with Illyricum, but with Aecana, and Felix is sent here to deliver the saint in Rome. Many residents of Aecana arrive after the death of the martyrs, and take their bodies, burying them in their town. According to these Latin variants, the death of the martyrs took place on April 18.
The „Aecana” edition is used in the drafts of the Carolingian Martyrologies of Florus from Lyon, Rabanus Maurus, Adonis of Vienna, Usuard and also in a poem of Flodoard of Reims known as „Christ's victory in Italy”.
The title of „bishop of Illyricum” comes in the Roman Martyrologies only through Baronius (1586), influenced by the Greek variant. In the later Roman Martyrologies, Eleutherius is called a martyr from Messana (now Messina) on the island of Sicily. This error goes back to Florus of Lyon’s redaction of the martyrology, replacing Aecana with  Messana in Puglia, a current place for the veneration of St. Eleutherius. This small error made St. Eleutherius very popular also Messina, Sicily, until today, even if the saint was never there.

St. Elefterie and his mother Anthia

The worship

Because of the error of Florus and other copyists of the Roman Martyrology,  Sicily became in the XVII century a local place of veneration of the saints, but references to the existence of the relics have been no recorded. The erroneous spelling “Aquileia” instead of “Apuglia” in the martyrology of Rabanus Maurus (cf. PL vol.111, col. 140) and Notker Zaika (cf. PL vol. 131,  col. 166) followed to a local veneration of St. Eleutherius in the Croatian town of Poreč (italian Parenzo), because the  seat of Aquileia was transferred here. So, Raban and Notker report that after the martyrdom, Eleutherius and his mother were moved in Aquileia, where he was a bishop (and not in Aecana), and there buried.
In this chaos created by the erroneous copies, also the memorial day traditions differ. According to the martyrology of St. Jerome and the two old latin version, the saints are celebrated on April 18. The same day was celebrated also according the “Calendario Marmoreo” of Naples and outside Italy, according to the Frankish and Mozarabic calendars from the XI-XII  centuries. Certain manuscripts also testify the dates of November 24, September 6 (instead of the Pope Eleutherius).
Many churches in Italy were built in honor of St. Eleutherius: in Rome, on via Labicana, in Nepi, Vasto, Parenzo d’Istria (these venerate the saint on April 18). In Chieti, Benevento, Salerno, and Sulmona the saint is venerated on May 21. Another days of celebrations are May 13 in Terracina, May 23 in Arce, and December 31 in Canne in Puglia, where he is considered to be a local bishop, son of Evanzia („Evanthia”, which may be understood as the latinization of the Greek „ev-Anthia”, that is „the good Anthia”). The monastery San Liberatore a Maiella (in the Abruzzi mountains) dedicated to St. Liberator celebrates St. Eleutherius on May 15, and this may demonstrate the identification of Eleutherius with the roman martyr Liberator (the Latin version of the Greek „eleutherios”, which means “one who is free”), bishop of Beneventum, celebrated in the Martyrology of Jerome on May 15.
In the Byzantine space, as already told, the Greek martyrologies state this celebration on December 15. But in order to make the things even more complicated, a relatively early veneration of Saint Eleutherius in the Eastern Church of Constantinople is stated by two old scripts, a byzantine canon of Joseph the hymnographer (IX cent.), which speaks of “currents of healing” coming from the shrine of Eleutherius. A second witness is given by the Synaxarium Constantinopolitanum about in the 10th century, mentioning the name of the saint associated with the in the quarter of Xirolophos (also known as “The Harbors of Eleutherios”), where existed a church of St. Eleutherius already built under Emperor Arcadius (395-408). However, both of these references do not exclude the possibility that they may be associated with the saint Martyr Eleutherius Coubicularios, injured in Bithynia (but the most likely buried in Constantinople), where, according to the hagiography, he was born, commemorated on December 15 and on August 4. With the expansion in the 9th -10th centuries, the Byzantine could mingle his cult with the one of the Roman martyr.

St. Elefterie Church in Bucharest

Relics

In the present time the relics of Eleutherius and Anthia seem to be located in Troia, south Italy, as the Aecana tradition states.  After the Rietica tradition, the saints were buried in Rieti (near Rome, the authenticity of the latter being officially recognized by the Roman Church) and later on their tombs it was elevated the church of Santa Sabina. An examination of the relics was made with the blessing of Pope Innocent III and of the local bishop Adenulf, in the presence of two cardinals in August 13, 1198, when they were transferred in the new built reatine cathedral of St. John the Apostle (San Giovanni della Pigna), together with the relics of Saint Genesius of Rome. The association with San Giovanni della Pigna may also be a result of confusion with St. Pope Eleuterius (also former deacon of Pope Anicetus and himself pope at the end of the 2nd century, celebrated on May 26), whose relics were also said to have been translated to San Giovanni della Pigna.

Church San Giovanni de la Pigna

Cathedral in Troia, Apuglia

There is to be mentioned that small pieces of the relics of Eleutherius and Anthia are to be found in other Italian cities (eg. in Terracina) and outside (eg. a finger in Antwerp, Belgium), but also in one of the two churches dedicated to the saint “Elefterie” in Bucharest and in Caldarusani monastery near the same city.

Relics at St. Elefterie Church in Bucharest

Relics of the saint, Caladarusani monastery, near Bucharest

Troparion (Hymn) of the Saint

Adorned with flowing priestly vesture and with dripping streams of blood you at once went to your Lord Christ, O blessed wise Eleutherios, annihilator of Satan. Wherefore, do not cease to intercede for those who honor your blessed struggles in faith!

Serramonacesca benedictine Church of  San Liberatore in
 Majella

Relics of the Saint in St. Elefterie Church, Bucharest