Aphrodisius of Scythopolis

Saint Aphrodisius of Scythopolis suffered in the early fourth century at Scythopolis in Palestine, among sixty martyrs named in several calendars. He is commemorated on 17 May. His name is not included in the present calendar of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The martyrs presented themselves of their own free will before the governor of the region and rebuked his inhuman nature, then overturned and smashed the altars of the gods. The enraged pagans beat them to death. The bodies of the martyrs were buried by Christians, and later a church was raised on the place of the killing.

A short life of the martyrs of Scythopolis is kept in an old manuscript. It may be that they are the same as the six young men mentioned by Eusebius of Caesarea, who came before the proconsul Urban, confessed themselves Christians and were beheaded. In the Synaxarion of the Church of Constantinople of the tenth century and in the Typikon of the Great Church of the same century, under 4 May, there is a commemoration of the martyrs of Scythopolis, with a note that the synaxis in their honour is held in the church of the Mother of God at Chalkoprateia, in the side chapel of the holy Apostle James, the brother of the Lord. Under 5 May their commemoration is found in the Synaxarion of Peter of the eleventh century and in other synaxaria.

The earliest evidence of their veneration in Rus is their mention in the calendars of the Ostromir Gospel of 1056 to 1057 and of a twelfth-⁠century Gospel. In the first half of the twelfth century a non-⁠verse Prologue was translated in Rus, in which their commemoration was entered under 4 May. In the Great Menaia of Saint Macarius the commemoration and a verse for the martyrs are found.