Sainted Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, was born about the year 80 and lived in Asia Minor in the city of Smyrna. He was left an orphan at an early age, but through the direction of an Angel, he was raised by the pious widow Kallista. After the death of his adoptive mother, Polycarp gave away his possessions and began to lead a chaste life, caring for the sick and the infirm. He was very fond of and close to the holy bishop of Smyrna, Bucolus. He ordained Polycarp as deacon, entrusting to him to preach the Word of God in church.
At this time the holy Apostle John the Theologian was still alive. Saint Polycarp was especially close to Saint John the Theologian, whom he accompanied on his apostolic wanderings. Sainted Bucolus ordained Saint Polycarp presbyter, and shortly before his death expressed last wishes that he be made bishop upon the Smyrna cathedra. When the ordination of Saint Polycarp to bishop was accomplished, the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to him. Saint Polycarp guided his flock with apostolic zeal. He was also greatly loved among the clergy. With great warmth did Saint Ignatius the God-Bearer regard him. Setting out to Rome where execution awaited him (he was torn asunder by wild beasts), he wrote to Saint Polycarp: "Just as the winds and turbulence require the rudder for coming ashore, so likewise are the present times necessary, in order to reach God."
The emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-180) came upon the Roman throne and started up a most fierce persecution against Christians. The pagans demanded that the judge seek out Saint Polycarp, "the father of all the Christians" and "the seducer of all Asia." During this while Saint Polycarp, at the persistent urging of his flock, stayed at a small village not far from Smyrna. When the soldiers came for him, he went out to them and led them in to eat, and at this time he began to pray, having prepared himself for the deed of martyrdom. His suffering and death are recorded in "An Epistle of the Christians of the Church of Smyrna to the other Churches," one of the most ancient memorials of Christian literature. Having been brought to trial, Saint Polycarp firmly confessed his faith in Christ and was condemned to burning. The executioners wanted to tie him to a post, but he calmly told them that the bonfire would not work, and they could merely tie him with ropes. The flames encircled the saint but did not touch him, coming all together over his head. Seeing that the fire did him no harm, the throng of pagans demanded that he be killed with a sword. When they inflicted the wound upon Saint Polycarp, there flowed from it so much blood, that it extinguished the flames. The body of the hieromartyr Polycarp was then committed to flame. The Christians of Smyrna reverently gathered up his venerable remains, honouring his memory as sacred.
A story has been preserved about Saint Polycarp by his disciple, Sainted Irenaeus of Lyons, which Eusebius cites in his "Ecclesiastical History" (V, 20): "I was still very young when I saw thee in Asia Minor at Polycarp's," writes Saint Irenaeus to his friend Florinus, "but I would still be able to point out the place where Blessed Polycarp sat and conversed, be able to depict his walk, his mannerisms in life, his outward appearance, his speaking to people, his companionable wandering with John, and how he himself related, together with other eye-witnesses of the Lord, those things that he remembered from the words of others and in turn told what he heard from them about the Lord, His teachings and miracles. Through the mercy of God to me, I then already listened attentively to Polycarp and wrote down his words not on tablets, but in the depths of my heart. Wherefore, I am able to witness before God, that if this blessed and apostolic elder heard something similar to thy fallacy, he would immediately stop up his ears and express his indignation with his usual phrase: 'Good God! That Thou hast permitted me to be alive at such a time!'"
During his life the sainted bishop wrote several Epistles to the flock and letters to various individuals. There has survived to the present his Epistle to the Philippians which, on the testimony of Blessed Jerome, was read in the churches of Asia Minor at Divine services. It was written by the saint in response to the request of the Philippians to send them a letter of the Hieromartyr Ignatius, which had been preserved by Saint Polycarp.
During the times of persecutions against Christians the remains of the holy martyrs usually were buried by believers in hidden places. So also at Constantinople, nearby the gates and tower named the Eugenikoi, were found buried a great number of the bodies of martyrs, the names of which remained unknown by the Church.
When on this spot miracles of healing began to happen, the relics of the saints were discovered and with great honour moved to a church. It was revealed to a certain pious clergyman, Nicholas Kalligraphos, that among the relics discovered at Eugenius were also the relics of the holy Disciple from among the seventy, Andronikos, and his helper Junia, about whom the Apostle Paul makes mention in the Epistle to the Romans (Rom. 16:7).
In the twelfth century at the place of discovery of the relics of the holy martyrs was built a great domed church by the emperor Andronikos (1183-1185), the patron saint of whom was the holy Disciple Andronikos.
The Monk Timothy the Wilderness-Dweller, an Italian by descent, from youth asceticised at a monastery, called "Symbola," in Asia Minor near Mount Olympus. The archimandrite of the monastery was the Monk Theoktistos. Saint Timothy was his disciple and co-student of the Monk Platon, a Studite Confessor (+814).
Attaining a high degree of spiritual perfection, he received from God the gift of healing the sick and casting out unclean spirits.
The monk spent many years as an hermit, roaming the wilderness, the mountains and forests, both day and night offering up prayer to the Lord God. He died in extreme old age, in the year 795.
Sainted Leo was bishop of the city of Catania, in Sicily. He was famed for his benevolence and charity, and his Christian love for the poor and the vagrant. The Lord granted him the gifts of healing of various illnesses, and also wonderworking.
During the time when Saint Leo was bishop in Catania, there lived a certain sorcerer magician named Heliodorus, who impressed people with his fake miracles. This fellow was originally a Christian, but then he secretly rejected Christ and became a servant of the devil. Saint Leo often urged Heliodorus to be done with his wicked deeds and return to God, but in vain. One time Heliodorus got so impudent that, having entered into the church where the bishop was celebrating Divine services, he by his sorcery sowed confusion and temptation there, trying to create a disturbance. Seeing the people beset by devils under the sorceror's spell, Saint Leo realised that the time of gentle persuasions had passed. He calmly emerged from the altar and, grabbing the magician by the neck with his omophorion, he led him out of the church into the city square. There he forced Heliodorus to own up to all his wicked deeds; he commanded a bonfire be built, and without flinching he jumped together with the sorcerer into the fire, while having on his omophorion. Thus they stood in the fire, until Heliodorus got burnt, while by the power of God Saint Leo remained unharmed. This miracle while still during his lifetime brought Saint Leo reknown. When he died, at his grave a woman with issue of blood received healing. The body of the saint was placed in a church of the holy Martyress Lucy, which he himself had built, and later on his relics were transferred into a church of Sainted Martin the Merciful, Bishop of Tours.
The Holy Disciples from the Seventy: Archippus, Philemon, and Apthea were students and companions of the holy Apostle Paul. In the Epistle to Philemon, the Apostle Paul names Saint Archippus as his companion.
The Disciple Archippus was bishop of the city of Colossa in Phrygia. The Disciple Philemon was an eminent citizen of this city, and in his home the Christians gathered to celebrate Divine-services. He was likewise ordained to the dignity of bishop by the Apostle Paul and he went about the cities of Phrygia, preaching the Gospel. Later on, he became archpastor of the city of Gaza. Saint Apthea, his spouse, took into her home the sick and vagrants, zealously attending to them. She was indeed a veritable co-worker to her spouse in proclaiming the Word of God.
During the persecution against Christians under the emperor Nero (54-68), the holy Disciples Archippus and Philemon and Equal-to-the-Apostles Apthea were brought to trial by the city-governor Artocles for confessing faith in Christ. The Disciple Archippus was brutally hacked at with knives. After torture, they buried Saints Philemon and Apthea up to the waist in the ground, and stoned them until the holy martyrs died.
Sainted Leo I the Great, Pope of Rome (440-461), received an exceedingly fine and diverse education, which opened for him the possibility of an excellent worldly career. But his yearning was in the spiritual life, and so he chose the different path of becoming an archdeacon under holy Pope Sixtus III (432-440), after whose death Saint Leo in turn was chosen as Pope of the Roman Church, in September 440.
These were difficult times for the Church, when heretics besieged the bulwarks of Orthodoxy with their tempting false teachings. Saint Leo combined within himself a pastoral solicitude and goodness, together with an unshakable firmness in questions of the confession of the faith. He was in particular one of the basic defenders of Orthodoxy against the heresies of Eutykhios and Dioskoros, who taught that there was only one nature in the Lord Jesus Christ, and he was a defender also against the heresy of Nestorius. He exerted all his influence to put an end to the unrest by the heretics in the Church, and by his missives to the holy Constantinople emperors Theodosius II (408-450) and Marcian (450-457) he actively promoted the convening of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, at Chalcedon in 451, for condemning the heresy of the Monophysites. At this Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon, at which 630 bishops were present, there was proclaimed a missive of Saint Leo to the then already deceased Sainted Flavian, Patriarch of Constantinople (447-449). Saint Flavian had suffered for Orthodoxy under the Ephesus "Robber Council" in the year 449. In the letter of Saint Leo was posited the Orthodox teaching about the two natures [the Divine and the human] in the Lord Jesus Christ. And with this teaching all the bishops present at the Council were in agreement. The heretics Eutykhios and Dioskoros were excommunicated from the Church.
Saint Leo was likewise a defender of his fatherland against the incursions of barbarians. In the year 452, by the persuasive power of his word, he stopped a pillaging of Italy by the dreadsome leader of the Huns, Attila. And again in the year 455, when the leader of the Vandals [a Germanic tribe], Henzerich, turned towards Rome, he boldly persuaded him not to pillage the city, burn buildings, nor spill blood. He knew about his death beforehand and he prepared himself by ardent prayer and good deeds, for the passing over from this world into eternity.
He died in the year 461 and was buried at Rome, in the Vatican cathedral. His literary and theological legacy is comprised of 96 sermons and 143 letters, of which the best known is his missive to Saint Flavian.
The Holy Martyr Theodore Tyro was a soldier in the city of Alasium of the Pontine district (northeast province of Asia Minor, stretching alongside the coast of the Pontus Euxine, i.e. the Black Sea), under the command of a certain Brincus. They commanded him to offer sacrifice to idols. Saint Theodore firmly and in a loud voice confessed his faith in Christ the Saviour. The commander gave him several days to think it over, during which time Saint Theodore prayed intensely. They charged him with setting afire a pagan temple and threw him into prison for death by starvation. The Lord Jesus Christ appeared to him there, comforting and encouraging him. Brought again to the governor, Saint Theodore yet once more boldly and fearlessly confessed his faith, for which he was subjected to new torments and condemned to burning. The martyr Theodore without hesitation climbed onto the bonfire and with prayer and laudation gave up his holy soul to God.
This occurred in about the year 306 under the Roman emperor Gallerius (305-311). Unharmed by the fire, the body of Saint Theodore was buried in the city of Eukhaitakheia, not far from Amasium. His relics were afterwards transferred to Constantinople, to a church dedicated to his name. His head is situated in Italy, in the city of Gaeta.
Later on, fifty years after the martyr's death of Saint Theodore, the emperor Julian the Apostate (361-363), wanting to commit an outrage upon the Christians, commanded the city-commander of Constantinople during the first week of Great Lent to sprinkle all the food provisions in the market-places with the blood of idol-sacrifices. Saint Theodore, having appeared in a dream to archbishop Eudoxios, ordered him to inform all the Christians that no one should buy anything at the marketplaces, but rather to eat cooked wheat with honey - kolivo (kut'ya or sochivo). In memory of this occurrence there is made annually the celebration of the holy Great Martyr Theodore Tyro on Saturday of the first week of Great Lent. On the eve of Saturday, that is, on Friday, in the Divine Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified Gifts after the amvon prayer there is read the molieben-kanon to the holy Great Martyr Theodore, compiled by the monk John Damascene. After this, kolivo is blessed and distributed to the faithful. The celebration to the Great Martyr Theodore on Saturday of the first week of Great Lent was set by the Patriarch of Constantinople Nektarios (381-397).
