Theagenes of Melitene

Holy Martyr Theagenes of Melitene is commemorated in the company of martyrs around the Holy Martyr Hieron, who suffered at Melitene. The calendar page we rely on tells their passion together and says nothing in particular about Theagenes. We give the event in brief.

Hieron, born at Tyana in the second Cappadocia of a believing mother, Stratonike, lived in the time of the emperors Diocletian and Maximian, persecutors of Christians. The governor Lysias, sent to Cappadocia to enrol strong men in the army and to kill Christians who would not worship idols, heard of Hieron and sent soldiers to bring him. Hieron refused to join with the idolaters and put those sent to flight. He then withdrew with eighteen Christians into a cave, from which he drove back those besieging him, until his friend Cyriacus persuaded him to come out and go with the soldiers. He took leave of his mother, an old, blind widow, and set out for Melitene with his relatives Victor, Matronianus and Antonius. On the road a figure in white appeared to him in the night and told him that he would soon receive glory from the heavenly King.

At Melitene he was shut in prison together with thirty-⁠three other Christians, whom he urged not to bow to idols but to offer God the sacrifice of praise. Before Lysias, Hieron confessed that he had beaten the soldiers, and Lysias had his hand cut off to the elbow and the others beaten at length. Victor, a relative of Hieron, bribed an official to remove his name from the list and died soon after, losing both his life and the crown of martyrdom. Hieron entrusted his last will to Antonius and Matronianus. On the fifth day Lysias condemned the martyrs to be beheaded. They went to the place of death singing the psalm "Blessed are the undefiled in the way" and prayed the Lord to receive their souls. Hieron's head was ransomed with gold by the rich Chrysaphius, who built a church on the place of the martyrdom, and his hand was taken to his mother, who laid it as he had said.

Theagenes is commemorated on 20 November (new style), that is 7 November by the old calendar.