Photius of Constantinople

Holy Martyr Photius of Constantinople, called also Phocas, died in the year 730 in defence of the holy icons, in the time of the iconoclast emperor Leo the Isaurian (717-741). He is remembered together with the martyrs Julian, Marcian, John, James, Alexis, Demetrius, Peter, Leontius, the patrician Maria, the protospatharios Gregory and others.

The emperor deposed the holy Patriarch Germanus (715-730) from the patriarchal throne, sent him into exile and unlawfully placed on the throne the iconoclast Anastasius (730-753). By imperial decree all icons were to be removed from churches and houses and destroyed. At Constantinople, above the so-⁠called Bronze Gate, from the time of Saint Constantine the Great, a wonderworking icon of the Saviour, made of bronze, had been set up. The emperor and Patriarch Anastasius ordered it taken down. A soldier set a ladder and climbed up to take it. The assembled people rose against this sacrilege. In the crowd was the patrician Maria, a woman of noble birth; she, and after her many others, rushed to the ladder and pulled it from the wall, so that the soldier should not touch the icon. The ladder collapsed, the soldier fell and was killed. This happened on 19 January 730. In the defence of the icon the protospatharios Gregory and the venerable martyr Theodosia (commemorated on 29 May) also took part.

Learning of it, the emperor put to death a multitude of Orthodox, whose names and number God alone knows. The protospatharios Gregory also died a martyr. But some Orthodox of noble families, Julian, Marcian, John, James, Alexis, Demetrius, Leontius, Photius and Peter, were shut in prison for about eight months, receiving each day five hundred blows, but by the power of Christ they remained alive and bore it bravely. By the emperor's order their faces were burned with red-⁠hot iron and their heads cut off. Saint Maria the patrician, who had not been imprisoned, learning of the coming execution, willingly accepted a martyr's end. The bodies of the martyrs were buried in the place called Pelagius's, beside the church of the holy martyr Theodore, and were found incorrupt after a hundred and thirty-⁠nine years. The saints are commemorated on 22 August.