Montanus

Holy Hieromartyr Montanus was a priest in Singidunum (present-⁠day Belgrade) and died a martyr, together with his wife, Saint Maxima, in the year 304, at Sirmium, in the persecution of Diocletian. The two are remembered on 13 March, which is 26 March on the new calendar, in the Serbian Church. Their bodies were thrown into the river Sava.

The persecution

Our source places them in the third century, but the year 304, in which the events took place, belongs to the beginning of the fourth. The emperor Diocletian and his son-⁠in-⁠law and co-⁠ruler Galerius, who had his seat at Sirmium (today Sremska Mitrovica), were then carrying on a great persecution of the Christians. The life of Montanus and Maxima is preserved in Russian and Romanian sources, but also in many old texts, above all Latin. They say that the two lived at Singidunum at the end of the third century and the beginning of the next, where the start of the persecution found them, in February 304. In the city the persecution was carried out by the governor Probus. His cruelty in applying the orders of the edict put the Christians of that time before a hard choice: to stay and be surely put to death, or to flee and save their lives. Saint Montanus and Saint Maxima, following the word of Christ "When they persecute you in one city, flee to another" (Matthew 10:23), went to the nearby and renowned city of Sirmium, where the well-⁠known bishop Irenaeus was then.

The confession

On the road, Roman soldiers seized them and took them to the governor Probus. As soon as the inquiry began, Montanus confessed his faith in Jesus Christ and acknowledged that he was a priest. After the usual process of the time, Probus asked him to offer sacrifice to the idols, which Montanus refused. At the trial the governor used fair words and trickery to turn him. But Montanus remained unshaken in his faith. He explained to the judge that sacrifice to idols would be the same as denying Jesus as Lord and Master of heaven and earth. Angered and thwarted by this unyielding stand, and wishing to exploit the weakness of the "weaker sex", Probus called his wife Maxima and set her face to face with Saint Montanus. Both were led out on the great bridge of the Sava at Sirmium, where the trial continued.

They tried by threats to bring Maxima to renounce Christianity and to persuade her husband to do the same. She refused and asked Probus to be tortured together with her husband, wishing to become also a martyr of Christ. Her conduct stirred the enthusiasm of the gathered crowd. Fearing that many might accept Christianity under the influence of Maxima, the governor decided to end the trial and kill them. The martyrdom took place on 26 March 304.

The relics

Not far from the place of the trial, the Christians, risking their lives, drew their bodies and heads out of the river. The relics were then taken to Rome and buried in the catacomb of Saint Priscilla, where they remained about fifteen hundred years. In 1804 several graves were opened and many relics were found, shown in the Catholic Church, among them the relics of Saint Maxima, very well preserved. Pope Pius VII gave these incorrupt relics to the Roman family Sinibaldi, who kept them more than a hundred years in their private chapel. In 1927 the relics of Saint Maxima were given into the keeping of a Catholic monastic order, the Poor Clares of San Lorenzo in Rome, from where they were later moved to Chicago, where they stayed forty years. Then began moves from one convent to another, from one priest to another, and for a time they were in danger of ending up in a rubbish dump, which would have happened if Father Joseph Lowe, a Catholic missionary, had not taken them. After his death, they were given into the keeping of a Catholic convent in Ohio, where they are today. The Orthodox Church remembers Saint Montanus and his wife Maxima on 13 March (26 March on the new calendar).