Iamblichus of Ephesus

Saint Iamblichus of Ephesus is one of the Seven Holy Youths of Ephesus: Maximilian, Iamblichus, Martinian, John, Dionysius, Exacustodian (Constantine) and Antoninus, who lived in the third century. Maximilian was the son of the governor of Ephesus, and the other six were sons of other notable citizens of Ephesus. The youths were friends from childhood and all were in military service.

When Emperor Decius (249-251) came to Ephesus, he ordered all citizens to appear and offer sacrifice to the pagan gods; the disobedient were awaited by torments and death. On the denunciation of those who sought the emperor's favour, the seven youths too were summoned to judgment. Brought before the emperor, they confessed their faith in Christ. Their military insignia, their belts, were taken from them at once. But Decius let them go free, hoping that they would change their decision while he was away on campaign. The youths left the city and hid in a cave on Mount Ochlon, where they spent their time in prayer, preparing for the struggle of martyrdom. The youngest of them, Saint Iamblichus, dressed in beggar's rags, went into the city and bought bread. On one of these outings he heard that the emperor had returned and that they were being sought to be brought to judgment. Saint Maximilian encouraged his friends to come out of the cave and appear of their own will for judgment. Learning where the youths were hiding, the emperor ordered the mouth of the cave blocked with stones, that they might die there of hunger and thirst. Two of the officials present at the walling up of the entrance were secret Christians. Wishing to preserve the memory of the saints, they placed among the stones a sealed casket with two tin tablets, on which were written the names of the seven youths and the circumstances of their suffering and death.

But the Lord sent the youths a wonderful sleep, which lasted almost two centuries. By then the persecution of Christians had ceased, though in the time of the right-⁠believing Emperor Theodosius the Younger (408-450) heretics appeared who denied the resurrection of the dead at the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Some said: How can there be a resurrection of the dead, when there will be neither soul nor body, for they will be destroyed? Others claimed: Only souls will receive recompense, for bodies cannot rise after a thousand years, when not even dust remains of them. Then the Lord revealed the mystery of the resurrection of the dead and of the life to come through the seven youths.

The owner of a plot of land on which Mount Ochlon lay began a stone building, and the workers opened the entrance of the cave. The Lord raised the youths, who woke as from an ordinary sleep, without suspecting that almost two hundred years had passed. Their bodies and clothes were wholly incorrupt. Preparing to receive torments, the youths asked Saint Iamblichus to buy bread in the city once more to strengthen their forces. Approaching the city, the young man was astonished to see the holy cross on the gates. Hearing the name of Jesus Christ freely spoken, he began to doubt whether he had come to his own city. Paying for the bread, he gave the merchant a coin with the image of Emperor Decius and was detained as the hider of a hoard of old coins. Saint Iamblichus was brought to the governor of the city, with whom the bishop of Ephesus then was. Listening to the young man's puzzled answers, the bishop understood that God was revealing a mystery through him and went himself, with the people, to the cave. At the entrance of the cave he took out of the heap of stones the sealed casket and opened it. He read on the tin tablets the names of the seven youths and the circumstances of the blocking of the cave by order of Decius. Entering the cave and seeing them alive, all rejoiced and understood that the Lord, by their waking from the long sleep, was revealing to the Church the mystery of the resurrection of the dead. Soon the emperor himself arrived in Ephesus and spoke with the youths in the cave. Then the holy youths, before the eyes of all, bowed their heads to the ground and fell asleep again, this time until the general resurrection. The emperor wished to lay each in a precious shrine, but the holy youths, appearing to him in a dream, told him to leave their bodies in the cave, on the earth. In the twelfth century the Russian pilgrim Hegumen Daniel saw in the cave the relics of the seven youths.

The commemoration of the seven youths is kept a second time on 22 October. (According to a tradition that entered the Russian Prologue, the youths fell asleep a second time on that day; according to a note in the Greek Menaion of 1870, they first fell asleep on 4 August and woke on 22 October. The holy youths are also mentioned in the service of the church new year, on 1 September.) The calendar we rely on has them on 17 August and on 4 November (new style).