Martinian of Ephesus

Saint Martinian of Ephesus is one of the seven youths of Ephesus: Maximilian, Iamblichus, Martinian, John, Dionysius, Exacustodian (Constantine) and Antoninus, who lived in the third century. They were friends from childhood, sons of notable citizens of Ephesus, and all served in the army. The Azbyka page says nothing particular about Martinian.

When the emperor Decius (249-251) came to Ephesus and ordered all to sacrifice to the pagan gods, the seven confessed faith in Christ. Decius took away the signs of their rank and let them go free, hoping they would change their minds. They hid in a cave of Mount Ochlon and prayed, preparing for martyrdom. When they learned that they were being sought, they appeared willingly at the trial. Learning where they hid, the emperor ordered the entrance of the cave walled with stones, so that they would die of hunger and thirst. Two officials who were secret Christians placed among the stones a sealed casket with two tin tablets, with the names of the seven and the story of their suffering.

The Lord brought upon them a sleep that lasted almost two centuries. In the time of Theodosius the Younger (408-450), when some heretics denied the resurrection of the dead, the owner of a plot near the cave began a building, and the workmen opened the entrance. The youths awoke as from an ordinary sleep. Iamblichus, sent to buy bread in the city, saw the cross on the gates and was stopped because he paid with a coin bearing the image of Decius. The bishop of Ephesus, seeing his bewilderment, went with the people to the cave, took out the sealed casket and read the names of the seven on the tablets. All understood that the Lord was thus revealing the mystery of the resurrection of the dead. The emperor himself came and spoke with the youths, and they, before all, fell asleep again, until the general resurrection. They then appeared to him in a dream and asked to be left in the cave, on the ground, not in a shrine. In the twelfth century the Russian Abbot Daniel, a pilgrim, saw their relics there.

The memory of the seven is kept a second time on 22 October. The memory of Martinian falls on 17 August (4 August in the old style) and on 4 November (22 October in the old style), in the new style.