Demetrius of Constantinople

Holy Martyr Demetrius of Constantinople was among the martyrs who suffered for the holy icons in the year 730, in the time of the iconoclast Emperor Leo the Isaurian (717-741): Julian, Marcian, John, James, Alexis, Demetrius, Photius, Peter, Leontius, the patrician Maria, the protospatharios Gregory and others. They are commemorated on 22 August.

The emperor deposed the Holy Patriarch Germanus (715-730) from the patriarchal throne and sent him into exile, and on the throne unlawfully set the iconoclast Anastasius (730-753). By the emperor's order all icons were to be removed from churches and houses and destroyed. In Constantinople, over the so-⁠called Bronze Gate, since the time of the holy and right-⁠believing Emperor Constantine the Great (324-337), a wonderworking bronze icon of the Saviour was fixed. The emperor and Patriarch Anastasius ordered it taken down. A soldier set a ladder and climbed up to remove the icon. The assembled people rose against this sacrilege. In the crowd was the patrician Maria, a woman of noble family; she, and after her many others, ran to the ladder and pulled it from the wall, so as not to let the soldier touch the icon. The ladder collapsed, and the soldier on it fell and was killed. This happened on 19 January 730. In the defence of the icon there also took part the protospatharios Gregory, a commander of soldiers, and the venerable martyr, the virgin Theodosia, commemorated on 29 May. Learning of it, the emperor at once put to death many hundreds of Orthodox, whose names and number are known only to the Lord. The protospatharios Gregory also received a martyr's death.

But several Orthodox of noble families, Julian, Marcian, John, James, Alexis, Demetrius, Leontius, Photius and Peter, were shut in prison and held there some eight months, receiving every day five hundred blows. By the power of Christ they remained alive in these torments and bravely endured the sufferings. By the emperor's order their faces were burned with red-⁠hot iron and their heads cut off. Saint Maria the patrician, who had not been imprisoned, learning of the coming execution, willingly accepted a martyr's death. The bodies of the martyrs were buried in the place called Pelagian, near the church of the Holy Martyr Theodore, and were found incorrupt after a hundred and thirty-⁠nine years.