Diodotus of Melitene

Holy Martyr Diodotus of Melitene was one of the thirty-⁠three Christians who suffered at Melitene together with the Holy Martyr Hieron, in the time of the emperors Diocletian and Maximian. They are commemorated on 20 November. Nothing is said of Diodotus in particular; their story is told below.

Hieron

Hieron was born in the city of Tyana, in the second, Great Cappadocia, of a pious mother, Stratonice. Learning that the inhabitants of Armenia and Cappadocia refused, against the decrees, to bow to the idols, the emperors sent two cruel men, Agricolaus to Armenia and Lysias to Cappadocia, with the order to kill all Christians who would not bow to the idols and to enlist in the army all strong men and youths. Lysias learned of Hieron as a healthy, strong man of special courage and sent soldiers to take him. Hieron, learning that he was being taken into the army, refused, thinking it harmful for a Christian to be with idolaters, and when the soldiers wished to take him by force, he seized a tree and beat them, making them flee, as a lion chases kids. The soldiers gathered again and more came. Hieron, with eighteen Christian men, hid in a cave and repulsed the besiegers. The commander sent to him a friend, Cyriacus, who advised the soldiers to withdraw, because Hieron could be taken only by gentleness, and persuaded Hieron to go and enlist. Hieron went home, to his mother, an old and blind widow, who wept, calling him the support of her old age and the light of her blind eyes. Taking leave, Hieron took with him a relative, Victor, and set out for Melitene with the soldiers, accompanied by his relatives, Matronian and Anthony, and other believers. In the night, on the way, a man in white garments told him gently that he walked the right road, for he went to fight for the heavenly King and that soon he would pass to Him. Hieron told his companions that he had learned the secret of God's favour toward him and that he went with joy, and that his only care was his mother, whom he entrusted to Christ, the Father of orphans and widows.

At Melitene

At Melitene Hieron, together with thirty-⁠three other Christians, was shut in prison. There he told his companions not to bow to the idols, but to offer a sacrifice of praise to the true God, and they accepted with joy. Lysias questioned them in the morning, and the saints confessed that they worshipped the Creator of heaven and earth. Hieron admitted that he had beaten the soldiers and Lysias ordered his hand cut off to the elbow, and the others beaten without mercy. They were thrown into prison again and thanked God. But Victor, a relative of Hieron, weakened by the beatings and fearing worse, called the clerk who kept the list of the Christians and begged him to strike out his name, promising him an estate. The clerk let him out of prison by night, but Victor died soon and lost property and life and the crown of martyrdom. Hieron wept bitterly and left to his relatives, Anthony and Matronian, his testament: his property in Pisidia was to go to his sister, Theotimia, that she might commemorate him on the day of his death; the rest to his mother, the widow; his severed hand they were to take to his mother, and she was to ask by letter the governor of Ancyra, Rusticus, for a house in Vadisana, where his hand was to be placed. On the fifth day Lysias judged them again and, failing to persuade them, ordered them beaten without mercy with rods and then condemned to beheading. The martyrs went to the place of execution singing: blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord. They knelt, prayed and their heads were cut off with the sword.

The relics

Anthony and Matronian asked for Hieron's body, but Lysias refused and demanded for the head, as the price, its weight in gold. A rich and renowned man, Chrysaphius, gave the gold and kept the head with honour. Lysias began to look for the hand too, but Anthony and Matronian fled by night home with the saint's hand. The bodies of the martyrs were buried in secret, in a hidden place, by other Christians. Stratonice took her son's hand, washed it with tears, kissed it and laid it on her eyes, rejoicing that she was the mother of a martyr. She placed the hand in the place he himself had indicated. Chrysaphius later built a church on the place where the saints were beheaded and placed in it the martyr's head.