St Hesychios the Martyr

Commemorated March 2

Holy martyr Hesychios was the first and the leader in the royal palace and the Senate during the reign of king Maximian in 302 AD. When Maximian ordered that all Christians who were royal soldiers ought to be deprived of their belt (which was a sign of their royal merit) and live as civilians and without honour, many Christians preferred to live without any outward honour due to this illegal order than to be honoured and lose their soul. St. Hesychios was numbered with these Christians, and when the emperor heard this, he ordered that the Saint ought to be stripped of the expensive clothes, which he used to wear, and be dressed with a shabby mantle without sleeves woven from hair and to be as disgraced and disdained as to consort with women.

When this had been carried out, the king asked him, "Aren't you ashamed, Hesychios, that you lost the honour and office of magistrianus and that you have been debased to this kind of life? Or maybe you don't know that the Christians, whose way of life you preferred, have no power to restore you to your previous great honour and office?" The saint replied, "Your honour, O emperor, is temporary but the honour and glory which Christ gives is eternal and without end". Because of these words the emperor got angry and ordered his men to tie a great millstone around the Saint's neck and throw him in the middle of river Orontus, which lies in Coele Syria and which is commonly called Oronge. Thus, the blessed man received the crown of martyrdom from the Lord.