Cyril of Heliopolis

Holy Hieromartyr Cyril of Heliopolis was a deacon in Heliopolis in Phoenicia. The Azbyka page contains a wider account from the time of Julian the Apostate (361-363), in which Cyril is one of those who suffered.

First the page tells of Saint Mark, bishop of the Syrian city of Arethusa, ordained in the time of Constantine the Great. Full of zeal for God, he became known for his struggle against idolatry and with his own hands tore down a pagan temple, building a Christian church in its place. In the troubles after the Council of Nicaea he was found among the semi-⁠Arian bishops, who did not deny the divinity of the Word but would not accept the word "consubstantial" in the Creed. He took part in the councils of Sardica (343) and Sirmium (351) and even drew up a statement meant to reconcile the opposing parties (359), but soon he realised his error and joined himself clearly to Orthodoxy. Under Julian the pagans of Arethusa, who bore him a stubborn grudge, wanted to seize him. Mark fled, but when he learned that other Christians had been arrested in his place and were being tortured, he gave himself up to the pagans. They stripped him, beat him, set him in a foul sewer and handed him over to children for sport, then smeared his body with brine and honey and hung him in a basket in the open air, under the sun and the stings of wasps and bees. He accepted no compromise with the pagans, not even a promise to rebuild the temple he had torn down. In the end they let him go, and some of them turned to Christianity. Saint Mark reposed in peace in 364.

At the same time Cyril, a deacon in Heliopolis of Phoenicia, who had also destroyed many idols in the time of Saint Constantine, was seized by pagans. They cut open his belly, scattered his entrails on the ground and ate his liver raw. Those guilty of this outrage were later punished by God: some lost all their teeth, the tongues of others rotted, and others lost their sight.

In the Palestinian cities of Ascalon and Gaza the pagans seized priests and women consecrated to God, tore out their entrails, gave them to swine and stuffed their bellies with oats. At Sebaste they opened the shrine of the relics of Saint John the Forerunner and Baptist and threw them into the fire, then scattered the ashes to the wind. Yet the pagans did not succeed in restoring the worship of idols. The people, for the most part, stayed so indifferent to their efforts that when Julian wished to hold a great festival at Antioch in honour of Apollo, he found himself and his courtiers alone in an empty temple, while the city mocked him.

Saint Cyril is commemorated on 11 April, in the new style.