Orentius, Pharnacius, Heros, Firmus, Firminus, Cyriacus and Longinus

The holy martyrs Orentius, Pharnacius, Heros, Firmus, Firminus, Cyriacus and Longinus, venerated as the Seven Brothers of Lazica, were, according to the Byzantine and Georgian tradition, Roman soldiers who suffered for Christ in the time of the emperors Diocletian and Maximian, in the year 304 according to tradition. They are commemorated together on 24 June. Their story is preserved in later Byzantine and Georgian texts, not in Roman sources of their own time, and the fact that they were brothers by blood cannot be proved.

The sources

We have no Roman testimony from their time about their martyrdom. The tradition is found in Byzantine synaxaria and menologia, among them the Synaxarion of Constantinople and the Menologion of Basil II, and in Georgian literature it also circulated. Paul Peeters thought that the legend formed in the Christian communities of the eastern Black Sea shore, linked with Lazica, where the Greek and Georgian traditions meet. The picture in the Passion follows the usual pattern of ancient martyr writings: the conflict between Christian faith and duty to the Roman gods.

Their suffering

According to the Passion, in the time of Maximian the Scythians attacked the Greeks. To fight the Scythian chief Maroth, a man of unusual bodily strength, Orentius, a strong and brave warrior, was sent. He was a Christian, like his six brothers who also served in the imperial army, and he called on the Lord for help and defeated Maroth, thus stopping the invasion. The emperor decided to offer sacrifice to the pagan gods and called the victor to take part, but Orentius refused, saying that he was a Christian and that he had defeated the enemy by the power of the true God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Neither the promise of honours and wealth nor threats could turn him aside. The emperor then ordered Orentius and his six brothers, Pharnacius, Heros, Firmus, Firminus, Cyriacus and Longinus, to be sent into exile in the Caucasus.

On the way all seven died. The first to die was Heros, on 22 June, at Parembole. Then Orentius received martyrdom: he was cast into the sea with a stone tied to his neck, and according to tradition the Archangel Raphael brought him ashore at Rhizaion, on the southern shore of the Black Sea, where the saint died. Pharnacius died on 3 July at Cordyle, Firmus and Firminus on 7 July at Aspar, on the eastern shore of the Black Sea, Cyriacus at Ziganea on 14 July, and Longinus on the ship on 28 July; a storm cast the ship ashore at Pitiunt (Pitsunda), where the martyr's body was buried.

Veneration

The seven brothers are commemorated together on 24 June, and several of them also have separate commemorations in Byzantine calendars. Their veneration became bound to the land of Lazica and the eastern coast of the Black Sea, and their place in Byzantine liturgical collections shows their standing in the wider Byzantine tradition of saints.