Aristion of Alexandria in Cilicia
The Holy Hieromartyr Aristion, Bishop of Alexandria in Cilicia
Hieromartyr · Bishop · b. early 2nd century, Aribazo in Syria — d. 2nd century, Alexandria in Cilicia
Commemorated 3 September — Martyrdom by fire under the Roman eparch
Aristion (second century) was bishop of Alexandria in Cilicia — the "lesser Alexandria" by the gulf of Issus, not the Egyptian metropolis — and died in it a martyr by fire. Born at Aribazo in Syria at the beginning of the second century, he was won to Christ in his youth by the future martyr Anthony, then a boy of ten from his own town; grown old in the episcopate, he was arrested by the Roman eparch, refused flattery and threats alike, and was cast into a furnace, where witnesses heard him singing hymns in the fire until his last breath. His flock gathered his bones and hid them; the place is unknown to this day.
Aristion's Alexandria must be told apart from the great one: Alexandria ad Issum (Alexandretta), the small Cilician-Syrian port at the head of the gulf where Alexander broke Darius. Born at Aribazo in Syria at the opening of the second century, he was converted as a young man by a child — the boy Anthony, ten years old, of his own town, who would himself die a martyr — one of those inversions the age of the martyrs delighted to record, the child catechizing the man.
He became bishop of the little Alexandria and shepherded it long, into old age. In one of the second-century persecutions the Roman eparch arrested him; the trial ran the usual course — flattery, promises, threats — and Aristion held. Sentenced to death, he was thrown into a great furnace, and those who watched testified that he sang hymns in the flames until his breath failed. His spiritual children took up his bones and laid them in a hiding place which was never afterward disclosed.
Feast and commemoration
September 3 (church date; Old Calendar civil September 16), with the hieromartyr Anthimus of Nicomedia and the other saints of the day. He falls under the common of a hieromartyr (see references/common-readings.md).
Iconography
Aristion would be depicted as an aged bishop of the early Church in phelonion and omophorion, and in the narrative type standing in the furnace in prayer, after the manner of the Three Children. No image identified to him has been located; the entry is listed among the wanted icons.