Anthony

Holy Martyr Anthony of Ancyra lived in the time of the emperor Julian the Apostate (361) and is commemorated on 7 November (new style, the Greek calendar) together with his parents, Melasippus and Cassine, and with forty young men. On the same day another Anthony is commemorated, the brother of Matronianus and of the martyr Hieron of Melitene.

Anthony was the son of Melasippus and Cassine, Christians who raised him with great care and made him a worthy labourer of the Gospel. When the duke Agrippinus learned of their faith, he ordered them seized. He tried to overcome the parents by telling them that the life of their child depended on them, and urged Anthony with the thought that he could save his parents. But they did not fear a martyr's death. The duke was angered at hearing them praise Jesus and ordered them tortured.

Melasippus and Cassine he put to death by hanging them on wood. Anthony was cruelly tortured and then put into a burning furnace, but by the help of divine grace he remained unharmed. Seeing the miracle, forty young men came to believe in Christ and were immediately beheaded by the emperor's servants. Anthony was thrown into a fiery furnace and again remained untouched, and many came to believe in Christ. In the end the executioners cut off his head, and he received, like his parents, the unfading crown of martyrdom.