Agathopodes and Theodulus
The Holy Martyrs Agathopodes the Deacon and Theodulus the Reader of Thessalonica
Martyr · Deacon · d. c. 303
Commemorated 5 April — Martyrdom of the deacon and reader of Thessalonica
Agathopodes, an aged deacon, and Theodulus, a young reader, were clergy of the church of Thessalonica who during the Great Persecution of Diocletian refused to surrender the sacred Scriptures or to deny Christ, and were drowned in the sea with stones about their necks about the year 303. The elder and the youth, united in one confession and one death, are honoured together as martyrs of the Thessalonian church.
Agathopodes had grown old in the service of the altar as a deacon of the church of Thessalonica, honoured by all for his gentleness and his years; Theodulus was a young reader (anagnostes) of the same church, of blameless life. When the edicts of Diocletian commanded that the Christians hand over their sacred books to be burned and offer sacrifice to the gods, the two were seized together and brought before the governor.
They were pressed to give up the Scriptures and to sacrifice, and were promised honours if they complied and threatened with death if they refused; but the old deacon and the young reader answered with one voice that they would never betray the holy books nor deny their Lord. Theodulus, the account adds, was granted a dream in which he received a ring as a pledge of the crown to come, and told it to his elder to strengthen him. After imprisonment and torture, when nothing could shake them, they were led to the shore, stones were bound about their necks, and they were cast into the depths of the sea. Their bodies, washed up on the strand, were recovered by the Christians and honourably buried, and their memory was kept with love in Thessalonica.
Feast and commemoration
April 5 (church date; Old Calendar civil April 18), within Great Lent. They are kept universally among the martyrs of the Great Persecution.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of two martyrs)
Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their sufferings received incorruptible crowns from Thee, our God; for possessing Thy strength, they cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. By their intercessions save our souls.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Agathopodes is shown as an aged deacon in the sticharion and orarion, Theodulus as a young reader, both holding crosses, sometimes with the sea and the stones of their martyrdom. No pre-1900 icon of them alone has been identified for this collection.