Dometius the Persian

Saint Dometius the Persian, Venerable Martyr, was stoned at Nisibis in Mesopotamia in the year 363, in the time of Julian the Apostate, together with two disciples. He is remembered on 7 August.

According to tradition he was born in Persia, a pagan, in the time of Constantine the Great. As a young man he settled in the city of Nisibis, entered a monastery, was baptized and became a monk. Soon he went to the monastery of the Holy Martyrs Sergius and the Eunuch at Theodosiopolis. The archimandrite and abbot Urvel made him deacon and wished to make him priest as well, but Dometius fled to a deserted mountain and lived there in asceticism. Then he settled in a cave, where he worked many miracles and brought many to Christianity. The emperor Julian the Apostate (361-363), hearing of him, ordered his servants to find him and bury him under stones. The messengers found Dometius with his two disciples performing the appointed service at the ninth hour, attacked them and killed them with stones. Their martyrdom took place in the year 363.

The name Domitius appears three times in the Roman Martyrology, on 7 August, 23 March and 5 July, and it is uncertain that they refer to the same person. Dometius of Persia was depicted in an eighth-⁠century fresco in the church of Santa Maria Antiqua in Rome, which may indicate that there were Greek-⁠speaking monks there; the same fresco shows Saints Barachisius, Euthymius and Sabas of Palestine.