Galaktion and Episteme

Saints Galaction and Episteme, martyrs, were husband and wife, from Syria or Phoenicia, in the third century, put to death for faith in Christ. Galaction brought his wife to the Christian faith. They are commemorated on 5 November and on 19 January, the day of the Synaxis of the saints of the land of Egypt.

According to tradition, their life was written by Eutolmius, a slave of Galaction's father-⁠in-⁠law. The text of the life entered the Menaion of Symeon Metaphrastes and the Menologion of Basil II the Macedonian. Later this edifying story entered the Old Russian Prologue, under 5 November, and in the sixteenth century was included in the Great Menaia Reader of Metropolitan Macarius.

Some authors link this life with the novel Leucippe and Clitophon, written by Achilles Tatius in the second or third century. Our sources give no further details of their death.