Timothy of the Thebaid

Holy Martyr Timothy of the Thebaid, a reader, suffered in the year 286, during the harshest persecution of the emperor Diocletian, together with his wife Maura. The two Christians were seized twenty days after their wedding and brought to trial before Arian, the governor of the Egyptian Thebaid. According to tradition, Timothy was a reader in a local church, keeper and copyist of the service books, and his father, Picolpos, was a priest. He came from the village of Perapeia and had been denounced for keeping Christian books, which on the emperor's order the soldiers were collecting and burning.

The governor demanded that the holy books be handed over, and Timothy refused, saying that a father does not hand his children over to death and neither could he put these books into unclean hands. Arian showed him the instruments of torture, but Timothy answered that he saw them as well, though the governor did not see the angels of God who strengthened him. Red-⁠hot iron rods were driven through his ears, which took away his sight, and he was hung head downward with a piece of wood in his mouth and a heavy stone tied to his neck. The suffering was so great that even the executioners begged the governor to ease it.

Then Arian learned that Timothy had married only twenty days earlier and had Maura brought in, hoping that he would waver before her. At her request the wood was taken from his mouth, and Timothy urged her not to fear the torments and to go with him to the struggle of confession. Maura replied that she was ready to die with him. The governor had her hair torn out and her fingers cut off, then threw her into a boiling cauldron. She felt no pain, and when she sprinkled water from the cauldron on the governor's hand, he cried out from the burn. For a moment Arian confessed that the God of Maura is the true God, but the power of the evil one took hold of him again, and he began to devise new tortures. The crowd rose in protest, demanding an end to the abuse of an innocent woman, and Maura said that she had no defender but God, in whom she trusted.

After long torments Arian ordered them crucified facing each other. For nine days they hung on their crosses, encouraging one another by looks and words, and on the tenth day they gave their souls into the hands of God, in 286. Later in Constantinople their memory began to be celebrated solemnly and a church was built in their honour. The relics of Saint Timothy are in a small monastery, Diskouri, in Crete, near the village of Axos. Since "Maura" means "black" in Greek, in Macedonia their day is called "the Black Day".

Saint Timothy is commemorated on 16 May, in the new style.