Barbarus the Myrrh-streamer
The Holy Martyr Barbarus, formerly a robber, the Myrrh-streamer, in Thessaly
Martyr · Venerable · Wonderworker
Commemorated 6 May — Repose in the wilderness of Thessaly; the myrrh-streaming grave at Kellia near Larissa, 15 May — Commemoration in the printed Greek Menaion, with Pachomius the Great and Achillios of Larissa
Barbarus was a brigand of Thessaly who for years lived by robbery, extortion and murder, and who, sitting in his cave among his plunder, was struck by the thought of death and judgement and broke. He confessed his crimes to a village priest, was received, and spent twelve years in the woods as a wild beast — naked, on all fours, eating grass — in expiation. There he was shot by merchants who took the shape in the long grass for game; he died blessing them, asking only that his priest be told, and from his grave there flowed a healing myrrh that gave him his epithet. He is commemorated on May 6, and his relics are kept at the monastery of Kellia near Larissa.
The robber
The account gives no dates and no emperor; Barbarus belongs to the type of the penitent brigand whose story the Greek synaxaria preserve in a handful of instances, and whose lack of chronology is itself a sign that the memory is a local Thessalian tradition rather than a martyr-act from the persecutions. He is described as a robber of the mountain roads — the notice charges him with robberies, extortions and many murders — with a cave for a storehouse.
The conversion
The turn came not from a preacher but from his own plunder. Contemplating what he had gathered, he was overtaken by the thought that he must die and be judged, and that no part of it would go with him. He went down to a village church, waited for the priest, and made a full confession of his life. The priest — the one constant human figure in the story — did not deliver him to justice but sheltered him, and gave him a penance suited to a man who had lived like a beast: to live as one.
Twelve years on all fours
Barbarus went into the woods and remained there twelve years, without clothing and without shelter, going on hands and feet, feeding on grass with the animals, never speaking, never returning to a house. The tradition insists on the completeness of the penance: nothing was reserved, no relief was sought, and the man who had terrified the roads became indistinguishable from the wild creatures.
The death
At the end of that time a party of merchants passing through the place saw something moving in the tall grass, took it for an animal, and shot. The arrows struck Barbarus mortally. When they came up and found a man, they were appalled; he comforted them, forgave them, told them that this was the end God had appointed for him, and asked one thing only — that they should go and tell the priest who had received his confession. So he reposed, and they buried him. The Church accordingly counts him a martyr, not because he suffered for confessing Christ before a judge, but because he was killed in the act of a penance freely embraced for Christ's sake; the Greek books hesitate between ὅσιος (venerable) and μάρτυς, and many print both.
The myrrh and the relics
From the grave there began to issue a fragrant and curative myrrh, healing various diseases, which is the origin of his title ὁ Μυροβλύτης, the myrrh-streamer or myrrh-gusher — the same epithet borne by Saint Demetrius of Thessalonica and Saint Nicholas. His relics were gathered and are venerated at the monastery of Kellia (Kellion) near Larissa in Thessaly, where his memory is kept with a local festival on May 6; churches and chapels in the Thessalian villages carry his name, and he is invoked as the patron of penitents and as a healer.
Feast and commemoration
May 6 (church date; New Calendar civil May 6, Old Calendar civil May 19), a commemoration of Greek and especially Thessalian keeping, listed universally in the synaxaria alongside the righteous Job, who leads the day. There is no proper office in the printed Menaion; the local shrine at Kellia keeps the feast with a vigil and with the veneration of the relics and the myrrh, and later Greek hymnographers have written services for local use.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4
Thy martyr, O Lord, in his courageous contest received an incorruptible crown from Thee, our God; for possessing Thy strength, he cast down the tyrants and broke the feeble insolence of the demons. By his intercessions, O Christ God, save our souls.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Barbarus is painted in the manner reserved for the great penitents: an unclothed or barely clothed figure in the wilderness, the body dark and gaunt, hair and beard grown long and matted, sometimes shown four-footed among the trees and grass in the act of his penance, with the arrows of the merchants striking him and a stream or vessel of myrrh at his tomb below. Where he is painted as a martyr he holds the cross, over a loin-cloth or a garment of leaves; where as a venerable, the hands are crossed on the breast. A narrative type shows the three moments together: the robber in his cave among his spoils, the confession before the priest, and the death in the grass. No pre-1900 image identifiable to him has been located for storage here; the surviving iconography is largely modern and belongs to the Thessalian shrines.
Disputed questions
Date. None is transmitted. The entry therefore carries no century and indexes under the unknown century; guesses ranging from late antiquity to the Ottoman period have been made on the strength of the shrine's history, none of them evidentially secure.
Martyr or venerable. See above: the calendars differ, OCA and the Slavic translations printing "Martyr Barbarus in Thessaly, who was a robber," several Greek synaxaria "Ὅσιος Βάρβαρος ὁ Μυροβλύτης." Both types are carried here.
Not to be confused with the soldier-martyr of the same name commemorated on the same day, Barbarus, Bacchus, Callimachus and Dionysius, beheaded under Julian the Apostate and buried at Methone in the Peloponnese. The coincidence of name and date has produced real confusion: calendars sometimes conflate the two into a single "Martyr Barbarus," and the epithet "myrrh-streamer" is occasionally attached to the soldier. They are distinct commemorations in the synaxarion tradition. A third figure, the Barbarus venerated in some Italo-Greek and Latin lists, is again separate.