Theotecnus of Antioch

Holy Martyr Theotecnus of Antioch was a military commander in Antioch and suffered for Christ in the time of the emperor Maximian (305-311).

Once the emperor came to Antioch and demanded that all the inhabitants sacrifice to the pagan gods. The Christian Theotecnus refused to carry out the order. Then the emperor, mocking the faith in Christ, ordered him dressed in women's clothes and made to spin with the slave women. After three weeks the emperor summoned him, thinking that humiliation had broken his spirit, but again heard the confession of the Name of Christ. Maximian threatened him that he would lose his life if he did not submit, but Theotecnus was silent. The emperor grew fierce and ordered his feet burned and his sinews cut, and then that he be thrown into a cauldron of boiling pitch. But as soon as Theotecnus was put in the cauldron, the fire beneath it went out and the heat in the cauldron cooled at once. The emperor was seized with terror and, unwilling to try the martyr further, sent him to prison and told his centurion to deal with the ascetic.

In the prison with Theotecnus was the Christian confessor Alexandra. Theotecnus helped her to escape from confinement. Learning of it, the centurion subjected him to savage tortures and finally ordered him thrown into the sea with a stone round his neck. After a time, near the city of Rhosus on the coast of Cilicia, the honoured relics of the martyr were found and buried in the Christian manner. The saint is commemorated on 23 October.