Plato

Holy Martyr Plato was the brother of the holy martyr Antiochus the physician (commemorated 29 July) and was born in Ancyra of Galatia, to a pious family. While still young he left his parents' house and took up the apostolic labor: he went from city to city, filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit, preaching the Gospel among the pagans and amazing his hearers by his eloquence and thorough knowledge of Greek letters. For this he was seized and taken to the temple of Zeus, before the governor Agrippinus. The judge first tried to persuade him with flattery to renounce Christ, saying that if he worshipped the pagan gods he would become as wise as the great philosopher Plato. The saint answered that the philosopher's wisdom is great but passing and limited, while true, eternal and boundless wisdom is found only in the teaching of the Gospel. The judge offered him his beautiful daughter in marriage as the price of denying the Savior, and threatened torture and death if he refused. Plato answered that he chose passing death for eternal life. Enraged, the governor ordered him beaten without mercy and imprisoned.

A week later he was brought again to the temple of Zeus, where the instruments of torture were ready: cauldrons of boiling water, a bed of red-⁠hot iron, sharp hooks. He was told either to sacrifice to the idol or to try these instruments on himself. The martyr again firmly refused, was tortured once more, then thrown into a cell where he stayed eighteen days without food or water. When the pagans saw that they could not bend his will, they offered him life and freedom if he would say: "Great is the Lord Apollo." "I do not wish to sin even in word," answered the bold confessor. By order of the persecutor, Plato was beheaded. The Church of Georgia commemorates him on 18 November (old style; 1 December new style).