Marcian of Constantinople

Holy Martyr Marcian of Constantinople suffered in the year 730, in the time of the iconoclast emperor Leo the Isaurian (717-741), for the holy icons. With him are commemorated Julian, John, James, Alexis, Demetrius, Photius, Peter, Leontius, Mary the Patrician, the protospatharios Gregory and others.

After the emperor drove Patriarch Germanus (715-730) from his throne and set the iconoclast Anastasius in his place, he ordered all icons removed from churches and houses. Above the "Bronze" gate of Constantinople stood, since the time of Constantine the Great, a wonderworking icon of the Saviour. When a soldier climbed a ladder to take it down, the people rose up, the patrician Mary and many others pulled the ladder from the wall, and the soldier fell and died (19 January 730). The emperor then put a multitude of Orthodox to death, among them the protospatharios Gregory. Marcian was numbered among the nobles Julian, John, James, Alexis, Demetrius, Leontius, Photius and Peter, who were thrown into prison about eight months and received five hundred blows each day. By the power of Christ they remained alive in these torments and bore them bravely. By the emperor's order their faces were burned with red-⁠hot iron and their heads cut off. Saint Mary the Patrician, who had not been put in prison, accepted death of her own will. The bodies of the martyrs were buried beside the church of the holy Martyr Theodore, in the district of Pelagius, and were found incorrupt after a hundred and thirty-⁠nine years.

They are commemorated on 22 August, in the new style.