Calliopius of Pompeiopolis
The Holy Martyr Calliopius of Pompeiopolis
Martyr · d. c. 304
Commemorated 7 April — Martyrdom of the youth crucified head-downward
Calliopius was a young Christian of Pompeiopolis in Cilicia, of noble birth, who during the persecution of Diocletian and Maximian confessed Christ and, after cruel tortures, was crucified — by his own request head-downward, that he might not be made equal to the Lord — on the day of the Lord's own Passion. His mother Theoclia, who had strengthened him in his contest, buried him and soon after died upon his grave. He is honoured among the martyrs of Cilicia.
Calliopius came of a distinguished family of Pompeiopolis in Cilicia; his mother Theoclia, a devout Christian widow, had reared him in the faith and, when the persecution arose, sent him away for safety — but Calliopius, unwilling to hide, presented himself before the governor Maximus and confessed himself a Christian. Urged to sacrifice to the idols, he refused, and was subjected to a succession of tortures — the wheel, the rack, hot gridirons — which he endured with the help of God, while his mother, coming to the prison, encouraged him not to fear death for Christ.
Sentence was at last passed that he be crucified. It fell that the day appointed was Great and Holy Friday, the day of the Lord's own crucifixion; and Calliopius, counting himself unworthy to suffer in the same manner as his Master, asked that he be nailed to the cross head-downward. So he completed his martyrdom. His mother Theoclia, having (the account says) bribed the guards to give her the body, wrapped it and buried it, and — spent with grief and joy — lay down upon her son's grave and gave up her own spirit, so that the two were buried together. Their memory was kept in Cilicia and throughout the Church.
Feast and commemoration
April 7 (church date; Old Calendar civil April 20), within Great Lent.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a martyr)
Thy martyr Calliopius, O Lord, in his contest received an incorruptible crown from Thee, our God; for possessing Thy strength, he cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. By his intercessions save our souls.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Calliopius is shown as a young man in the martyr's dress holding a cross, or upon the cross head-downward, sometimes with his mother Theoclia beside him. No pre-1900 icon of him alone has been identified for this collection.
Disputed questions
- Not to be confused with Kalliope, the virgin-martyr commemorated June 8. Her name is the feminine of his, and the Greek name-registers file the two under one heading, which makes the confusion easy; but she is a woman martyred by beheading under Decius in the middle of the third century, and he a youth of Perga crucified head-downward at Pompeiopolis under Maximian about 304. Neither notice mentions the other, and there is no transmitted relation between them.