Diomedes of Tarsus

Saint Diomedes the Martyr was a physician of Tarsus in Cilicia, a preacher of the faith, and is counted among the holy unmercenary healers. He died a martyr in the time of Diocletian, between 298 and 311. The Church remembers him on 16 August, and his name is invoked at the sacrament of Holy Unction.

He was born at Tarsus into a pious Christian family and was a physician by profession. He took no money from the sick, being "unmercenary", and helped the poor. According to his Life he also healed the sicknesses of the soul by calling on the name of Christ. He travelled a great deal, preaching the faith. He moved to Nicaea in Bithynia, where he healed and led many to faith, visited the prisons of the Christians, tended them and strengthened them for martyrdom. When Emperor Diocletian learned of his work, he ordered soldiers to seize him and bring him to Nicomedia. On the way Diomedes asked them to stop, got down from the cart, prayed and died. The soldiers cut off his head as proof of the arrest. It is said that when the head was brought to the emperor, all who were present were blinded, and only after the body was brought back and they prayed was their sight restored. Many believed afterwards.

His veneration spread in Constantinople: already in the time of Constantine the Great a church was built there in the martyr's name, in which his head and other relics were kept. In the first half of the sixth century a monastery dedicated to him appeared near the Golden Gate, and Basil I the Macedonian rebuilt and adorned the church in the ninth century, because he had there received the prophecy of his coming to the throne. A fresco of him is at the monastery of Hilandar on Athos. The Diomede Islands in the Bering Strait bear his name, because Vitus Bering's expedition sighted them on 16 August 1728, the saint's day. Another Saint Diomedes is commemorated on 2 September, with Julian, Philip, Theodore and others, martyrs at an unknown time.