Valerian of Scythopolis

Holy Martyr Valerian of Scythopolis suffered at the beginning of the fourth century at Scythopolis in Palestine, together with sixty other martyrs mentioned in several calendars. Of their own will they presented themselves before the governor of the region and denounced his inhuman nature, and then overturned and smashed the altars of the gods. The enraged pagans beat them to death. The bodies of the martyrs were buried by Christians, and later a church was raised on the place of their death.

A short life of the martyrs of Scythopolis is contained in the manuscript Ath. Laur. I 70, folio 208. It is possible that they are identical with the six youths mentioned by Eusebius of Caesarea, who, coming to the proconsul Urban, confessed themselves Christians and were put to the sword. In the synaxarion of the Church of Constantinople of the tenth century and in the typikon of the Great Church of the same century, under 4 May is found their commemoration, with the note that the synaxis in their honour is held in the church of the Mother of God at Chalkoprateia, in the side chapel of the Apostle James, the brother of the Lord. Under 5 May they are noted in the Synaxarion of Peter of the eleventh century and in other synaxaria.

The earliest evidence of their veneration in Rus is their mention in the calendars of the Ostromir Gospel of 1056-1057 and of a twelfth-⁠century Gospel. In the first half of the twelfth century the non-⁠metrical Prologue was translated in Rus, and their commemoration was placed in it under 4 May, while in the Great Menaion Reader there are a commemoration and a verse for the martyrs. The name of Saint Valerian is not included in the present calendar of the Russian Orthodox Church. The calendar gives it on 17 May, in the new style.