Leonidas of Athens

Holy Hieromartyr Leonidas, bishop of Athens, lived in the third century and received the crown of martyrdom in the year 250, together with seven women: Charissa, Nike, Galina, Kallida, Nounechia, Basilissa and Theodora. He is remembered on 15 April. Our Greek source says that he either fell asleep in peace or was martyred in the year 250, and that in some manuscripts he is called a martyr, which cannot be proved.

Life

He was from the region of Troezen and worked in the region of Epidaurus. He had a close spiritual bond with the seven women, a bond whose beginning is not known exactly, though some testimonies speak of it. In 1833 the priest of the community, Nikolaos Natsoulis, built a church in honour of Saint Leonidas. In Athens there is an early Christian church (a crypt) in the name of Saint Leonidas, behind the columns of the temple of Olympian Zeus.

Martyrdom

On Holy Saturday of the year 250, Saint Leonidas and his seven women were led to Corinth, before the governor, the proconsul Venustus. He asked them to renounce their faith in order to escape. But no one agreed to change his faith. So they were condemned to death. Saint Leonidas was tortured first and then hanged. His body, together with the seven women, was taken to the sea. There they bound the women with stones and threw them into the deep, the day before Pascha. The Christians of Epidaurus, who watched from a distance the dramatic moments of the saint and the seven holy women, gathered the dead bodies and buried them.

The finding of the relics

In 1916, after continual dreams, pious people of Epidaurus searched and found a "hidden treasure" beneath the foundations of the ruins of the church of the Mother of God. Digging in the indicated place, they found a holy icon of the Mother of God, and at a depth of seventy centimetres seven skeletons that proved to be those of women. At the same time a stone slab appeared, which, when moved, revealed a male skeleton showing that the man had been strangled, while a sweet fragrance rose from the grave.

Hymnography

The troparion calls him a most holy shepherd and wise hierarch of renowned Athens, who, serving the Saviour as a priest, struggled beyond nature and overthrew error. The kontakion calls him a God-⁠inspired hierarch, who ended his life as a martyr and endured the pains of the flesh with joy.