- Our Righteous Father Mark the Confessor, Bishop of Arethusa; Cyril the Deacon, and others martyred during the reign of Julian
- "Saint Mark was Bishop of Arethusa in Syria.
In the days of Saint Constantine the Great, Saint Mark, moved with
divine zeal, destroyed a temple of the idols and raised up a church in
its stead. When Julian the Apostate reigned, in 361, as the pagans were
now able to avenge the destruction of their temple, Saint Mark, giving
way to wrath, hid himself; but when he saw that others were being taken
on his account, he gave himself up. Having no regard to his old age,
they stripped him and beat his whole body, cast him into filthy sewers,
and pulling him out, had children prick him with their iron
writing-pens. Then they put him into a basket, smeared him with honey
and a kind of relishof pickled fish, and hung him up under the burning
sun to be devoured by bees and wasps. But because he bore this so
nobly, his enemies repented, and unloosed him.
-
"Saint Cyril was a deacon from Heliopolis in
Phoenecia. During the reign of the Emperor Constantius, son of Saint
Constantine, he had also broken the idols in pieces. When Julian came
to power, Saint Cyril was seized by the idolators and his belly was
ripped open. The other holy Martyrs celebrated today, martyred in Gaza
and Ascalon during the reign of Julian, were men of priestly rank and
consecrated virgins; they were disemboweled, filled with barley, and set
before swine to be eaten. The account of all the above Saints is given
in Book III, ch. 3, of Theodoret of Cyrrhus' Ecclesiastical History. (Great Horologion)
source:http://www.abbamoses.com
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