Seleucus

Holy Martyr Seleucus was a soldier from Cappadocia, who died beheaded at Caesarea in Palestine, in the persecution of Diocletian, among the twelve holy martyrs of that city. Saint Seleucus is commemorated on 16 February.

At Caesarea in Palestine twelve martyrs suffered, among them the presbyter Pamphilus of Beirut, the deacon Valens and Paul of Jamnia, who were held in prison two years under the governors Urban and Firmilian, and five young men who had come from Egypt, who had exchanged their pagan names for the names of prophets: Elias, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Samuel and Daniel. Asked about their homeland, the young men said theirs was the Jerusalem above, and Firmilian, who no longer knew the name of Jerusalem (the city had borne the name Aelia for over a century), ordered Elias tortured so as to reveal the location of a Christian city, and, unable to learn anything, condemned the five to the sword. He likewise condemned Pamphilus, Valens and Paul. Then Porphyrius, an eighteen-⁠year-⁠old servant of Pamphilus, cried out from the crowd that he wished the saints' bodies to be buried, confessed his faith and was burned alive.

Seleucus, a Christian man of Cappadocia, once a famous soldier in the armies of Rome, who at the start of the persecution had confessed Christ, had been beaten, expelled from the army and from honour and driven from his city, after which he had served the sick thrown out in the streets and cared for the poor. Being in the crowd when Porphyrius burned, he ran after those led away to be beheaded, told Pamphilus of Porphyrius's end and gave the martyrs his last salutation. The soldiers recognized him as a Christian and took him to the governor, who ordered him beheaded on the spot. So Seleucus entered the company of the martyrs, giving thanks to the Lord.