Nine Martyrs of Cyzicus

The Nine Martyrs of Cyzicus were nine Christians who preached in the city of Cyzicus in Asia Minor and received a martyr's death there. They are commemorated in the Orthodox Church on 29 April, by the old calendar (12 May on the new). They were called Theognidus, Rufus, Antipater, Theostichus, Artemas, Magnus, Theodotus, Thaumasius and Philemon, and suffered in the third century.

At the end of the third century the population of Cyzicus was chiefly pagan, and nine Christians came into the city from various towns and began their preaching there. They were arrested, brought to trial and subjected to various tortures, in order to make them renounce Christ and persuade them to offer sacrifices to the pagan gods. Seeing the steadfastness of the martyrs, they ordered them beheaded. The bodies of the saints were ransomed by a pious inhabitant of the city and buried outside it.

In the reign of Constantine the Great the relics of the saints were placed in a church built in their honour and were venerated as wonderworking. The acts of the martyrs tell of the healing of a paralytic who was laid upon the tomb of the saints, the healing of an inhabitant of Cyzicus from fever and dysentery, and healings of those possessed and paralyzed. According to popular belief the martyrs of Cyzicus help in bodily illnesses and epidemics. A Serbian source says that their relics, incorrupt, were placed in that church.