Aristocles, Demetrian and Athanasius
The Holy Martyrs Aristocles the Presbyter, Demetrian the Deacon and Athanasius the Reader, of Cyprus
Hieromartyr · Priest · Deacon · Martyr · d. c. 306
Commemorated 20 June — Martyrdom by beheading at Salamis in Cyprus, 23 June — Greek and Cypriot commemoration
Three clerics of the Church of Cyprus — a presbyter, a deacon and a reader — put to death at Salamis about the year 306, in the last and worst of the persecutions. Aristocles was a priest of Tamassos in the copper country of the interior who fled the persecution into a cave on the mountain, was rebuked there by a vision, and came down again to die; on the road he fell in with the deacon Demetrian and the reader Athanasius at the church of the Apostle Barnabas, told them what he had seen, and the two chose to go with him. All three preached openly against the idols in Salamis, were arrested, and were beheaded together. They are among the small number of named Cypriot martyrs of the great persecution, and their memory is kept at Tamassos to this day.
Aristocles of Tamassos
Aristocles was a presbyter of Tamassos (Ταμασσός), the inland city of Cyprus famous in antiquity for its copper mines — the metal that gave the island its name. He is described in the synaxarion as a priest of blameless life, learned in the Scriptures and diligent in his charge.
When the persecution of Maximian Galerius reached Cyprus — the sources place the events between 305 and 311, and the tradition fixes on 306 — Aristocles, by his own later confession, was afraid. He left the city and hid himself in a cave in the mountain, where he gave himself to prayer. What the account then relates is unusual among martyr-acts for its candour about the flight: at prayer in the cave he received a vision and a voice commanding him to go back down, to confess Christ publicly and to suffer for him. The strength of the story lies in the fact that the tradition kept the flight in rather than editing it out.
The three companions
Obeying the vision, Aristocles came down from the mountain and set out for the coast. At the church of the Apostle Barnabas — the great shrine outside Salamis where the apostle's relics had been found in the previous century, and the title-deed of the autocephaly of the Church of Cyprus — he met the deacon Demetrian and the reader Athanasius. He told them of the vision, and they resolved to go with him and to suffer with him; the account is careful to say that they were not arrested at his side by accident but chose their death deliberately, on hearing what he had been told.
The three entered Salamis — the metropolis of the island, called Constantia after its rebuilding — and preached in public against the worship of the idols, at a moment when public preaching was itself a capital act. They were seized at once and brought before the governor.
The martyrdom
Before the tribunal the three confessed Christ and would not sacrifice. The account distinguishes their deaths. Demetrian and Athanasius, the deacon and the reader, were condemned to the fire; but the flames, in the manner familiar from many passions of this period, left them untouched. Baffled, the governor fell back on the sword, and all three — Aristocles first, as the presbyter — were beheaded, about the year 306.
Their relics were gathered by the Christians of the island. A church of St Aristocles stands at Tamassos (modern Politiko, near the site of the ancient city), and the three are honoured together in the local Cypriot calendar as martyrs of their own soil.
Feast and commemoration
June 20 (church date; Old Calendar civil July 3) in the Slavonic books and in the OCA calendar, where the three follow Methodius of Patara in the day's list; June 23 in the Greek and Cypriot books. The service is the common of martyrs. Their veneration is strongest in Cyprus, and above all at Tamassos, where the church that bears Aristocles' name marks the place of his ministry; elsewhere the commemoration is a synaxarion notice without a proper service.
Hymns
Apolytikion — Tone 4
Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their contest 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.
Synaxarion
The fire spared the deacon and the reader; one sword took all three, and gave them one crown.
Iconography
The three are shown together, as a company of the same church rather than as three separate figures: Aristocles in the centre as a presbyter, in phelonion and epitrachelion, bearded, holding the Gospel or a cross; Demetrian at his side in the deacon's sticharion with the orarion over the shoulder and often a censer in his hand; Athanasius as a young reader, beardless, in a plain tunic and sometimes holding a book, the mark of his order. Each carries the martyr's cross. Where the passion is shown, the subject is the fire that failed to consume the deacon and the reader, with the executioner standing by with drawn sword.
No pre-1900 icon of the three has been located for this collection; a search of Wikimedia Commons under both the Greek and the Slavonic forms of their names returned nothing.
Disputed questions
- The day. The Slavonic books and the Orthodox Church in America keep the three on June 20; the Greek and Cypriot books keep them on June 23. Both dates are in current use and neither is an error; this entry records June 20 as the primary feast, following the usage of the day-file in which the three are first listed, and June 23 as the Greek and Cypriot commemoration. Some Cypriot local calendars add further days for Aristocles alone at Tamassos.
- The deacon's name. He is Demetrian (Δημητριανός) in the Greek; the Slavonic form Димитриан is sometimes rendered Dimitrios or Demetrius in translation, and the OCA and azbyka.ru both note the variant. He is not Demetrian of Skepsis, nor Demetrius of Thessalonica.
- The reader Athanasius is not to be confused with any of the several better-known saints of that name; nothing is transmitted of him beyond his office and his death.
- Aristocles' see and rank. He is uniformly a presbyter, not a bishop, and the title "hieromartyr" attaches to him in virtue of his priesthood; the Greek books head the notice Ἀριστοκλῆς ὁ πρεσβύτερος.