Conon of Iconium the Younger

Holy Venerable Martyr Conon of Iconium the Younger was a deacon and the son of the holy venerable martyr Conon of Iconium the Elder. The two suffered together at Iconium in Asia Minor, in the time of the emperor Aurelian (270-275).

The father, left a widower, withdrew with his seven-⁠year-⁠old son to a monastery. By his devout life he received help from above: he cast out demons, healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, preached the teaching of Christ among the pagans and brought many to the faith. The report reached the governor Domitian, a persecutor of Christians. Conon the Elder was summoned to trial and forced to sacrifice to idols, but he would not give way and was tortured. Brought to the trial also was his son, Conon, a deacon seventeen years old. When not even he could be persuaded by soft words to renounce the true faith, father and son were cruelly tortured: on an iron bed heated red-⁠hot, stripped, they were doused with boiling oil, thrown into a cauldron of molten tin, sulphur and pitch, hung head down and smoked with foul smoke, but, guarded by heavenly power, they remained unharmed. The tormentors, shamed and enraged, devised a terrible way to destroy them: to saw them in two with a wooden saw.

Learning the sentence, the saints asked for time to pray and cried to the Lord, thanking Him that He had counted them worthy to suffer for His Name, asking Him to give peace to His Church, to shame its persecutors, to strengthen and multiply those who believe in Him and to receive their souls. The voice of God was heard from heaven calling the suffering saints. Signing themselves with the Cross, the martyrs gave their souls to the Lord. At once an earthquake came and all the idol temples in the city fell.

The monks secretly buried the bodies of the martyrs in the monastery where they had struggled in life. Later the relics were moved to Italy, to the city of Acerra in Campania. Saint Conon the Younger is commemorated on 19 March, in the new style. Their life is also found in the Lives of the Saints by Saint Dimitry of Rostov.