Hieromartyr Zenobius and His Sister Zenobia

Saints commemorated

• Saint of the day

  Hieromartyr Zenobius and His Sister Zenobia

  Zenobius, bishop of Aegae in Cilicia, and his sister Zenobia were a brother and sister of a wealthy Christian family who gave away their inheritance to the poor and were glorified together in martyrdom around the year 285. A physician graced with the gift of healing, Zenobius was made bishop of his native city and was among the first seized when persecution broke out; when his sister saw him tortured she came forward and confessed Christ of her own accord, and the two were beheaded together after enduring the cross, the red-hot iron bed, and the boiling cauldron. They are commemorated on October 30, their joint feast keeping the memory of a family sanctified as a single company of witnesses.

• Holy Apostle Cleopas

• St Joseph I, Patriarch of Constantinople (1283)

• Holy Martyr Hermengild, Prince of the Visigoths (486)

• Holy Hieromartyr John Kochurov, First Hieromartyr of the Russian Revolution (1917)

• Marcian of Syracuse

  Marcian, the first bishop of Syracuse in Sicily, is venerated as a disciple of the Apostle Peter sent to preach in the West, and as a hieromartyr of the apostolic age. The tradition places his labours in a cave near Syracuse, from which he spread the faith through the island, and records that he died a martyr; his relics are kept at Gaeta on the Italian mainland. He is commemorated on October 30 and is identified in the received calendars with the "Marcellus, bishop of Sicily" honoured on February 9.

• Mark of Apollonias

  Mark of Apollonias — the apostle of the Seventy whom the New Testament names as "the cousin of Barnabas" (Colossians 4:10) — is counted by the Byzantine tradition among the Seventy and made bishop of Apollonias. He is commemorated on October 30 together with the apostles Tertius, Justus and Artemas of the Seventy, and with all the Seventy on January 4. He is one of the three apostles named Mark whom the synaxaria carefully distinguish — Mark the Evangelist (April 25), Mark "also called John," bishop of Byblos (September 27), and this Mark, bishop of Apollonias — while much of the source tradition, and modern scholarship, tangles the three together.

• Tertius, Mark, Justus and Artemas of the Seventy

  Tertius, Mark, Justus and Artemas were four apostles of the Seventy whom the Byzantine calendar commemorates together on October 30. Tertius, the scribe to whom Paul dictated the Epistle to the Romans, became second bishop of Iconium and died a martyr; Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, was bishop of Apollonias; Justus, called Barsabbas, was the candidate set beside Matthias to fill the place of Judas and later a martyred bishop of Eleutheropolis; and Artemas, the companion Paul thought to send to Titus, was bishop of Lystra and reposed in peace. Each is named in the New Testament; the Church keeps their joint memory among the Seventy sent out by the Lord.

British Isles and Ireland

• St. Ethelnoth the Good, 31st archbishop of Canterbury (1038)
• Virgin-martyr Arilda of Gloucestershire
• St. Talarican, Pictish bishop (6th C)

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