Alexander the Soldier

Holy Martyr Alexander the Soldier was a Roman soldier who believed in Christ after seeing the torments of the monk Coprius and was sentenced to be burned alive, in the time of the Emperor Julian the Apostate (361-363), in Egypt. He is commemorated together with Patermuthius and Coprius, on 9 July by the old calendar.

Patermuthius had been a pagan and the chief of a band of robbers, but he repented, was baptized and withdrew into the desert. He devoted the rest of his life to caring for the sick and burying the dead, and for his labour he received from God the gift of working wonders. The priest Coprius, his disciple and witness of his struggles, wrote the life and miracles of his father; he related it to the presbyter Rufinus, who passed it to Palladius, bishop of Hellenopolis, who included it in the "Lausiac History". Once Coprius entered into a dispute with the heretic Manicheus and, seeing that he could not defeat him by argument, proposed lighting a great fire and entering it together, so that the Lord Himself would show whose faith was true. Manicheus refused to go in first; Coprius entered and stood unharmed in the flames. The people glorified Coprius's faith and threw the heretic into the fire; Coprius then calmed the crowd and let him go.

On learning of the Egyptian hermits, the emperor summoned them and tried to turn them to paganism, craftily saying that he too had once served Christ but had found that only the pagan gods could give salvation. Coprius was deceived and denied Christ, but through the prayers and tears of his elder he understood his mistake, repented and confessed himself a Christian again. The emperor was enraged and ordered him tortured. Patermuthius encouraged his fellow monk to be brave and endure. One of the soldiers, named Alexander, seeing Coprius's terrible sufferings, believed in Christ and was condemned to be burned. Patermuthius and Coprius were beheaded by the sword.