Peter of Capitolias

Holy Hieromartyr Peter of Capitolias was a Christian of the eighth century, priest or monk, killed at Bosra, in present-⁠day Syria, for confessing his faith before Arab rule. The Orthodox Church remembers him on 4 October, the Catholic Church on 13 January. The story of his martyrdom, called the "Passion of Peter of Capitolias", is preserved in a single Georgian manuscript.

Life

He was born and grew up in Capitolias (also called Capitolias or the city of the Capitol), a city in what is today eastern Jordan, on the road to Damascus. He was married and had three children. After his wife's death he became a monk and, by some traditions, later became bishop of Bosra, in the south of present-⁠day Syria. Even if he was not a bishop, it is very likely that he was ordained at least a priest, so a hieromonk. The years of birth and death in our sources are around 650 and 715, but other sources speak only of the early eighth century.

Martyrdom

Our sources do not agree on how he was taken. One says he was stoned to death at Bosra because he criticized the Muslim religion. Another says he was denounced to the leader of the Arabs as a teacher of the Christians. He is said to have been questioned in turn by the governor of the district of Jund al-⁠Urdunn, Umar ibn al-⁠Walid, by his deputy, Zur'a, and finally by the caliph al-⁠Walid I (705 to 715). Because Peter boldly confessed his faith also before the Arab leader, his hands and feet were cut off, his eyes put out, he was crucified and, at the end, beheaded. His tortured body was burned in fire and then thrown into the river.

The source

The "Passion" is known from a single old Georgian manuscript, copied at the Gelati monastery in 1565. The Georgian text, with a Russian translation, was published by Korneli Kekelidze in 1915. A French summary by Paul Peeters appeared in 1939, and an English translation by Stephen J. Shoemaker in 2016. The Passion is attributed to "John, monk and priest of Damascus", who could be Saint John of Damascus, as Kekelidze thought. Theophanes the Confessor confirms that John wrote lives of saints, including an account of Peter of Capitolias, during his retirement at Mar Saba.