Athenodorus of Mesopotamia
The Holy Martyr Athenodorus of Mesopotamia
Martyr · d. c. 304
Commemorated 7 December — Martyrdom under Diocletian
Athenodorus was a martyr of Syrian Mesopotamia who suffered in the last great persecution of Diocletian, about the year 304. Having embraced the monastic life from his youth, he was denounced as a Christian, arrested, and subjected to severe tortures by the governor Eleusius; the miracles that attended his sufferings converted many of the pagan onlookers to Christ. He was beheaded, and is commemorated in the Byzantine synaxaria on December 7.
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Athenodorus came from Syrian Mesopotamia and, according to the synaxarion, gave himself from his youth to the ascetic life. When the persecution reached his country he was denounced as a Christian and brought before the governor Eleusius, who condemned him to fierce torments. The tradition relates that miracles accompanied his martyrdom — the torments failing to overcome him — and that at the sight of them many of the pagans present were converted to the faith. He was at last put to death by the sword, about the year 304, receiving the martyr's crown.
The record of Athenodorus is a brief synaxarion notice rather than a full acta, and it survives chiefly through the Byzantine menologia; his memory was fixed early enough to earn him a miniature in the imperial Menologion of Basil II around the year 1000.
Feast and commemoration
December 7 (church date; Old Calendar civil December 20), within the Nativity Fast, kept in the general Byzantine synaxarion together with Ambrose of Milan.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4
Thy martyr Athenodorus, O Lord, in his contest received from thee our God the crown incorruptible; for possessing thy strength, he cast down the persecutors and broke the feeble boldness of the demons. By his intercessions, O Christ God, save our souls.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Athenodorus is shown as a martyr — in the Menologion of Basil II miniature, at the moment of his beheading — bearded and in the dress of his rank; the martyr's red mantle and the cross are his usual attributes. The stored image is the miniature from the Menologion of Basil II (c. 1000).