Marinus of Anazarbus

Holy Martyr Marinus of Anazarbus (also called Marinus of Tarsus) was an elderly Christian of Asia Minor, put to death in Cilicia in the time of the great persecution of Diocletian, at the turn of the third and fourth centuries. He is remembered on 18 October (31 October on the new calendar). His relics were taken to Anazarbus.

The persecution

The persecution of Christians begun under Diocletian in 303 and continued by his successors until 313 was the last and harshest persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. In 303 the tetrarchs issued an edict which took away the rights of Christians and required them to keep the usual Roman religious practices. Later other edicts were issued, directed against priests and obliging all inhabitants of the empire to pagan sacrifices. The harshness of the persecution varied in the empire and was greater in the eastern part.

Confession and martyrdom

Being a Christian and seeing how pagans offer to idols not only animals and birds, but even human beings, Saint Marinus was inflamed with divine zeal and, while a festival was being held in honour of the lifeless idols, he went to the place where sacrifices were offered. Arriving there, the old man overturned the altars and trampled underfoot the sacrifices on them. He rebuked the impious priests and confessed himself a Christian.

For this the pagans seized him, beat him first with sticks, then with stones on the mouth, so that his teeth were knocked out, and dragged him by the hair on the ground. After all this the martyr was bound and brought to the governor of the region of Tarsus. The governor asked him to renounce faith in Christ, and Marinus refused. Then he was tortured: first beaten with whips, then put in chains and shut in prison. At sunrise the executioners tied the martyr to a rack and beat him again, and then, by being cut with the sword, Saint Marinus received the crown of martyrdom. His relics were later moved by two pious Christians to the city of Anazarbus.