Plisius

Holy Martyr Plisius was one of the eight martyrs who suffered at Caesarea in Palestine, before the governor Urban, in the time of Diocletian (284-305), in the second year of the persecution, and who were beheaded on the same day. He was from Egypt. He is commemorated on 15 March.

Of the eight martyrs, Agapius was from Gaza, Timolaus from the Pontus Euxinus, the two Dionysii from Tripoli in Phoenicia, Romulus from Diospolis, where he was a subdeacon of the church, and Plisius and the two Alexanders were from Egypt. When the pagan command forced all Christians to sacrifice to idols, at a pagan festival at Caesarea the people gathered for a spectacle at which bound Christians were to be tortured. First Saint Timothy was burned, then Agapius and Thecla, other than those commemorated here, were given to the beasts. Seeing the spectacle, six young Christians, among them Plisius, fired with zeal for Christ, bound their own hands behind their backs, as a sign that they desired to suffer without fear, and ran into the middle of the crowd, crying before the governor: "We are Christians."

The governor, seeing that they were young, did not wish to destroy them at once, but advised them at length with blandishments to worship the idols, and then threw them into prison. After a few days Saint Agapius came, a man honoured among Christians, who had confessed many times and been tortured, seized again with his servant Dionysius the Egyptian and thrown beside the six young men, so that they became eight. After many temptations and torments, because they bore everything bravely and did not deny Christ, they were condemned to beheading. On the same day they laid down their heads for Christ, the Head of the Church.