Codratus of Corinth

Saint Codratus was a Christian of Corinth, a healer and confessor of Christ, who received the crown of martyrdom with five companions in the persecution raised by the emperor Decius. The Church commemorates him on 10 March, together with Cyprian, Dionysius, Anectus, Paul and Crescens.

According to the tradition kept in the Serbian synaxaria, his mother, who was with child, had fled to the mountains and caves before the persecutors, like so many of the faithful. She bore Codratus in the forest and died soon after. Tradition says that the infant was kept by God's providence and by a guardian angel, and that, as the Lord had given manna to Israel in the wilderness, he let a sweet dew from the clouds fall on Codratus' lips. So the boy grew up in solitude, in the midst of nature.

At the age of twelve he came down to the city. Good people grew fond of him and had him taught. He learned the art of healing and cared for the sick, less with herbs than with the prayer to which he had grown accustomed from childhood.

When a new persecution began under the emperor Decius Trajan, Codratus was brought to trial and cast into prison. Five companions joined him and likewise confessed the name of Christ: Cyprian, Dionysius, Anectus, Paul and Crescens. They were dragged through the streets and beaten with sticks and stones by the pagans, above all by their children, until they were brought to the place of execution. There the martyrs prayed to God and were put to the sword.

It is said that a spring rose from the ground at that spot, and it still bears the name of Codratus and recalls the death of the six for Christ. The Serbian synaxarion gives the year 250 and names the governor Jason, in the time of Decius. Our dating records, however, lean toward 258, which would point to the persecution of Valerian. The sources at hand do not settle the difference.

The Serbian Orthodox Church keeps their feast on 10 March by the old calendar, which is 23 March by the new.