Alexander of Side
The Holy Hieromartyr Alexander, Priest of Side in Pamphylia
Hieromartyr · Priest · d. c. 270–275, at Side in Pamphylia
Commemorated 15 March — Martyrdom at Side under Aurelian, before the governor Antoninus
Alexander (†c. 270–275) was a priest of Side, the port-city of Pamphylia on the southern coast of Asia Minor, who suffered martyrdom in the persecution under the emperor Aurelian. Arrested for his bold preaching of Christ and brought before the governor Antoninus, he confessed the faith without flinching and was put through a succession of savage torments; through them, the synaxarion relates, the Lord upheld him beyond nature, so that the tortures failed of their purpose. At the last he was beheaded, and — in the received account — the very judge who had condemned him was moved by what he had seen. He is commemorated on March 15.
Alexander was a presbyter of the church of Side, a leading city of Pamphylia, in the years of the emperor Aurelian (270–275), when the peace the Church had enjoyed gave way once more to persecution. A zealous preacher who brought many of the pagans of the region to Christ, he was denounced and seized, and set before the governor Antoninus to answer for his faith.
He answered by confessing Christ openly and refusing every command to sacrifice to the gods. The governor gave him over to torture, and the synaxarion account describes a long ordeal of it — the sufferings the passions of the age delight to enumerate: he was scourged and torn, set upon instruments of iron, cast into fire and into the cauldron, and exposed to wild beasts — and through all of it, the tradition insists, he was preserved, the beasts not touching him and the fire not consuming him, so that the torments served only to make his constancy the more manifest. When neither pain nor wonder could shake him, Antoninus at last condemned him to death, and Alexander was beheaded, receiving the martyr's crown. The account adds that the governor Antoninus, confounded by the martyr's endurance and the failure of every torment, was brought to belief.
The circumstantial details of the passion are those of the developed synaxarion tradition and are received as such; what is held constant is the martyrdom of the priest of Side under Aurelian. His repose is placed within that reign, about the years 270–275.
Feast and commemoration
March 15 (church date; New Calendar civil March 15; Old Calendar civil March 28), kept across the Greek, Slavic and Antiochian calendars as the memory of "the holy hieromartyr Alexander, priest of Side." The feast falls within Great Lent, so that on a weekday no proper Liturgy is served and his memory is kept with the Lenten office. No proper service is appointed; the common of a hieromartyr, or of a martyr, supplies the office.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4 (from the common of a hieromartyr)
As one who shared in the ways of the Apostles and succeeded to their thrones, thou didst find in thy labours, O God-inspired one, an ascent to divine vision; wherefore, rightly dividing the word of truth, thou didst contend for the faith even unto blood, O Hieromartyr Alexander. Intercede with Christ our God that our souls may be saved.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Alexander is depicted as a priest of the early Church — vested in the phelonion and epitrachelion, holding a cross or a Gospel-book — and, where his passion is shown, at his beheading or amid the instruments of his torture. Because his commemoration falls in March, he is absent from the illuminated menologia of the first half of the year, and no pre-modern image proper to him has been identified and verified for storage; a suitable public-domain icon is wanting.
Disputed questions
- Side, not Sidon. The saint is the priest of Side (Σίδη) in Pamphylia, the Anatolian coastal city, not of Sidon in Phoenicia; the OCA and Greek calendars alike locate him "in Side, in Pamphylia."
- Not to be confused with either of the two martyrs named Alexander who are commemorated on this same day within the company of Agapius and his companions — young laymen (one Egyptian, one of Gaza) beheaded at Caesarea in Palestine under Diocletian, some thirty years after this Alexander. The three Alexanders of March 15 are distinct: one priest of Side under Aurelian, and two of the eight of Caesarea under Diocletian.