Varachius of Melitene

Holy Martyr Varachius of Melitene is remembered together with the Holy Martyr Hieron and the other martyrs who suffered at Melitene. The calendar page says nothing separate about Varachius, but tells the suffering of the group.

Hieron was born in the city of Tyana in Cappadocia, of a pious mother, Stratonice, in the time of the emperors Diocletian and Maximian. When the emperors learned that the inhabitants of Armenia and Cappadocia did not bow to idols, they sent two cruel men, Agricolaus to Armenia and Lysias to Cappadocia, with orders to put to death the Christians who would not sacrifice to idols and to enlist in the army all strong men and youths. Lysias heard of Hieron, a sturdy and courageous man, and sent soldiers to fetch him. Hieron, learning that he was being taken for the army, refused to go with them, thinking it harmful for a Christian to serve alongside idolaters. The soldiers wished to take him by force, and he seized a piece of wood and beat them, driving them off like a lion among kids. The soldiers came back in greater numbers, and Hieron shut himself in a cave with eighteen Christians and repelled the besiegers. Lysias sent to him a friend, Kyriakos, who advised the soldiers to withdraw and gently urged Hieron to submit and go to enlist. Hieron was persuaded, went home to his mother, an old blind widow, and, after weeping with her and taking his leave, set out for Melitene with the soldiers, taking with him relatives and fellow believers, among them Victor, Matronian and Antony. At night someone dressed in white announced to him in a vision that he was on the right road, that he was fighting for the heavenly King, and that he would soon receive honour and glory. Hieron told this joyfully to his friends and said that nothing troubled him but the grief of his mother, whom he left to God.

At Melitene Hieron was shut in prison with thirty-⁠three other Christians and advised them not to obey, not to bow to idols, and to offer a sacrifice of praise to the true God. The others received the advice gladly. In the morning Lysias tried them. The saints answered that they would be fools to give to things of wood and stone the honour due to God alone. Hieron admitted that it was he who had beaten the soldiers, saying that he hated those who hated the Lord. Enraged, Lysias ordered his hand cut off to the elbow and the others beaten without mercy, and then they were thrown again into prison, where they thanked God. Victor, weakened by the beatings and fearing worse, bribed an official to strike his name from the register and left the prison by night, but soon died, losing his property, his life and the martyr's crown. Hieron wept bitterly and, before his death, left his property in Pisidia to his sister Theotimia and the rest to his mother, asking his relatives to carry to her also the severed hand, to be laid in a house received from the official Rusticus of Ancyra.

On the fifth day Lysias summoned them again, urged them with flattery and threats, and then, seeing them unmoved, had them beaten with rods and condemned them to be beheaded. On the way to the place of execution the saints sang "Blessed are the blameless in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord", and there they knelt and said: "Lord Jesus Christ, receive our souls." Their heads were cut off with the sword. Antony and Matronian asked for the body of Hieron, and Lysias would give the head only for as much gold as it weighed. A rich man, Chrysaphius, paid the gold, took the head and kept it with honour. Antony and Matronian fled by night with the hand of the saint, while other Christians buried the bodies of the martyrs in secret. Stratonice received her son's hand, washed it with tears, kissed it and laid it where he had directed. Later Chrysaphius built a church on the place where the martyrs were beheaded and placed in it the head of Hieron.

Saint Varachius is commemorated, according to the calendar, on 20 November.