Eusebius of Laodicea

Holy Hieromartyr Eusebius of Laodicea, bishop, is commemorated in a company of holy martyrs: Gaius, Faustus, Eusebius, Chaeremon, Lucius, Peter and Paul, who suffered in the time of the persecution of the Emperor Valerian. They are mentioned in the surviving fragments of the letters of Dionysius the Great, Patriarch of Alexandria (247 to 265), to Bishop Germanus and to Domitius and Didymus, quoted in the Church History of Eusebius of Caesarea.

In the persecution of Decius, Gaius, Faustus, Peter and Paul carried Dionysius out of the city of Taposiris. Under Valerian, Dionysius stood, together with the presbyter Maximus and the deacons Faustus, Eusebius and Chaeremon, before the prefect of Egypt, Aemilianus, who ordered them to renounce Christ. They refused and were exiled to the village of Cephro, where a Christian community gathered around them. After a time Aemilianus sent them towards the Mareotis region, but, as Dionysius writes, he, Gaius, Faustus, Eusebius, Peter and Paul were taken from the escort, and Dionysius, Gaius and Peter found themselves in the Libyan desert near Paraetonium. According to Eusebius of Caesarea, Faustus survived the persecution of Valerian but was later beheaded.

These reports may have been the source of the hagiographic tradition that joined the martyrs into one company; the names and days of commemoration vary. The Greek synaxaria mention Dionysius and his eight companions. Their day of commemoration most likely goes back to that of Dionysius, 3 October. Eusebius is commemorated on 17 October (new style).