Timothy the Reader

The Holy Martyrs Timothy the Reader and his wife Maura suffered for the faith in Egypt during the persecution under Emperor Diocletian (284 to 305). Timothy came from the village of Perapa in the Egyptian Thebaid, the son of a priest named Pikolpossos. He was made a reader among the church clergy and also keeper and copyist of divine service books. Because he kept Christian books, which the emperor had ordered confiscated and burned, he was denounced and brought before the governor Arian, who demanded that he hand over the sacred books. For his refusal the saint was subjected to horrible tortures: two red-⁠hot iron rods were shoved into his ears, from which he lost his sight. Timothy bravely endured the pain and thanked God for granting him to suffer for Him. The torturers hung him head downward, with a piece of wood in his mouth and a heavy stone tied to his neck. His suffering was so extreme that even his tormentors implored the governor to ease the torture.

About this time Arian was told that Timothy had a young wife named Maura, whom he had married only twenty days before. Arian ordered her brought, hoping her presence would break Timothy's will. Timothy urged his wife not to fear the tortures but to follow his path. Maura answered: "I am prepared to die with you," and boldly confessed herself a Christian. Arian commanded that her hair be torn from her head and the fingers cut from her hands. Maura underwent the torment with joy and even thanked the governor for the torture, by which her sins would be forgiven. Then Arian ordered her thrown into a boiling cauldron, but she felt no pain and remained unharmed. Suspecting that the servants had filled the cauldron with cold water out of sympathy, Arian went up and ordered her to splash him on the hand with water from the cauldron. When she did, Arian screamed with pain and drew back his scalded hand. Momentarily admitting the power of the miracle, he confessed the God in Whom Maura believed as the true God and ordered her released. But the devil still held great power over the governor, and soon he again urged her to sacrifice to the pagan gods. Having gotten nowhere, he devised new tortures. Then the people began to murmur and demand a stop to the abuse of an innocent woman, but Maura, turning to the people, said: "Let no one defend me. I have one Defender, God, in Whom I trust."

Finally, after long torture, Arian ordered the martyrs crucified. For ten days they hung on crosses facing each other, and on the tenth day they offered up their souls to the Lord, in the year 286. Later a solemn celebration of the holy martyrs Timothy and Maura was instituted at Constantinople, and a church was built in their honor. Saint Maura's skull is in the church of Koilani, Limassol, Cyprus; fragments of her relics are at Kykkos Monastery in Cyprus and in the Greek church in Venice. They are commemorated on 3 May (new style; 16 May on the old calendar).