Gabriel of Adrianople

Holy Hieromartyr Gabriel of Adrianople was a priest and died a martyr in the time of the emperor Leo the Armenian (813-820) and of the Bulgarian khan Krum and his successors. He is remembered together with the bishops Manuel, George, Peter and Leontius and with the priests Sionius, John, Leontius and Parod.

According to the account of Saint Dimitry of Rostov, these holy martyrs were from various parts of the Roman Empire and lived in Adrianople, in the time of Leo the Armenian. At that time the Bulgarian king Krum laid waste Thrace and Macedonia and came up to Constantinople itself, then, after a three-⁠month siege, took possession of Adrianople (814) and took captive all the inhabitants left alive after the slaughter, up to forty thousand people; among them was the local bishop, whom the pagan king ordered thrown head first to the ground and trampled.

Krum died an evil death, and his successor, Dukum, died soon after. Over the Bulgarians came Dicengus, a fierce and inhuman ruler, who ordered Bishop Manuel of Adrianople sawn in two and his hands cut off to the shoulders, and the holy remains were thrown to the dogs. The wrath of God struck the inhuman man with blindness, and Dicengus was killed by his subjects. He was followed by Murtagon, who began a persecution of Christians who would not obey the command to renounce Christ: the faithful servants of Christ he tormented in prison, put to punishments and killed in cruel torments. The holy bishops George of Develtus and Peter, who strengthened their flock in the faith of Christ, he gave to very harsh beating with rods and then cut off their honoured heads with the sword; the same punishment was received with them by seven Christians; the Christian commanders John and Leontius were beheaded with the sword; Saint Leontius the eunuch, bishop of Nicaea, was pierced in the belly with a sword; by the sword Gabriel and Sionius received a martyr's end; Parod, the most pious priest, was stoned.

Many other faithful servants of Christ were beaten and shut in prisons in those times, and not only the savage Murtagon but his successors on the Bulgarian throne also cruelly persecuted the Christians, who by various torments and painful death won for themselves the eternal kingdom. On the same day is commemorated also the holy venerable martyr Anastasius, deacon of the Caves, who departed at the end of the twelfth century and rests in the cave of Venerable Anthony. The saints are commemorated on 4 February.