Martyr Acindynus of Persia and Others

Saints commemorated

• Saint of the day

  

  Martyr Acindynus of Persia and Others

  Acindynus, Pegasius, Aphthonius, Elpidephorus and Anempodistus were five martyrs of fourth-century Persia — courtiers and secret Christians at the court of King Shapur II — who confessed Christ before the king during his long persecution and were put to death around 341–345, together with a great multitude, reckoned by the tradition at seven thousand, who suffered with them. Their memory is kept together on November 2 with proper hymns that play on the meanings of their Greek names — "without danger," "flowing," "abundant," "hope-bearing," "unhindered" — turning the five into a single image of the grace that martyrdom pours out on the Church.

• Marcian of Cyrrhus

  Marcian of Cyrrhus (c. 320–388) was one of the foremost hermits of the Syrian desert in the fourth century, and among the ascetics whom Theodoret of Cyrrhus knew by report and described in his History of the Monks of Syria. Well-born and once a courtier, he withdrew to the wilderness of Chalcis, south-east of Cyrrhus, where he shut himself in a cell so small he could neither stand nor lie at full length, ate once a day, and prayed by a divine light that filled the enclosure at night. Sought out by bishops and pilgrims, he confuted heresy without leaving his cell, and on his deathbed had himself buried in secret to escape the strife already brewing over his relics. He is commemorated on November 2.

British Isles and Ireland

• SS. Baya and Maura, anchoresses, of Scotland (10th C)
• St. Erc of Slane (512)

Troparia & kontakia

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