Lupus of Novae

Saint Lupus was a martyr from the city of Novae on the Danube, who served and then followed Saint Demetrius the Great Martyr of Thessalonica. He was of Dacian or Roman stock and is counted among the oldest saints of the lands of the lower Danube. The Orthodox Church, including the Romanian Church, celebrates him on 23 August, and also remembers him with Saint Demetrius on 26 October.

Beginnings

Lupus was born in Novae, a Roman fortress in Moesia Inferior on the bank of the Danube, where the Bulgarian town of Svishtov stands today. He lived at the end of the third century and the beginning of the fourth, in the time of Diocletian, Maximian and Galerius. He was a contemporary of the Roman martyrs Montanus and Anastasia of Sirmium, also honoured by the Romanian Church. He came to Thessalonica, where he was the faithful slave of the Christian soldier Demetrius and received the Christian faith himself.

According to tradition, when Demetrius learned that Galerius would pass through Thessalonica in the autumn of 306, he prepared for death and gave half his property to Lupus and the other half to the poor of the city. Lupus was present at his master's arrest and martyrdom, on 26 October. He soaked his garment in the saint's blood and took the ring from his hand. With these relics he is said to have worked many miracles at Thessalonica, healing the sick and the infirm.

Martyrdom

Lupus preached the Gospel and overthrew pagan idols, for which he was persecuted but preserved unharmed. It is told that the soldiers pursuing him could not touch him with their arrows, although he stood still. He gave himself up willingly to the torturers and was cruelly beaten. Then, by order of the emperor Galerius (by some accounts, Maximian), he was beheaded with the sword on 23 August, shortly after Demetrius, in 306 or 307.

One historian has judged the story apocryphal. Lupus is linked with Novae, but not with Demetrius or with Thessalonica.

Novae

The fortress of Novae became a Roman-⁠Byzantine town in the fifth and sixth centuries. The ruins of the episcopal complex survive: a large basilica, houses with great baths, and a building for pilgrims who came to the local martyr, Saint Lupus. At the end of the sixth century Peter, brother of the emperor Maurice, passed through Novae with his army, and a chronicle describes the celebration of Saint Lupus' day held there.