Conon and his son Conon of Iconium

The Holy Martyrs Conon and his son Conon, of Iconium

Venerable Martyr · d. c. 270–275, at Iconium

Commemorated 6 March

Conon and his son, also named Conon, were martyrs of Iconium in Lycaonia (Asia Minor) in the third century, about the years 270–275. Left a widower, the elder Conon withdrew with his young son to a monastery, and there the father was granted the gifts of healing and of power over demons: he is remembered as one who cast out devils, healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, and preached Christ among the pagans. Father and son together confessed the faith in time of persecution and were put to death for it, and the Church keeps them as monk-martyrs on March 6. They are to be carefully distinguished from the two other martyrs named Conon kept the day before, on March 5.

The record of these martyrs is a short synaxarion memory, and the entry keeps to what it transmits. The elder Conon was a married man of the region of Iconium (Konya), the chief city of Lycaonia in the interior of Asia Minor — a place hallowed in Christian memory as a scene of the preaching of the Apostle Paul. After the death of his wife, being left a widower with a young son, also named Conon, he forsook the world and entered a monastery, taking the boy with him; father and son embraced together the monastic and ascetic life.

The tradition remembers the elder Conon as a worker of wonders. God granted him, the synaxarion says, the grace to cast out demons, to heal the sick, to give sight to the blind, and by these signs to draw many of the pagans of his country to faith in Christ. His holiness and his miracles made him known, and in a time of persecution — placed by the sources about the years 270–275, in the later third century — father and son were seized for the confession of Christ. Both refused to deny the faith, and both were put to death; the manner of their martyrdom is not recorded in detail, but they are venerated together as monk-martyrs (ὁσιομάρτυρες), the son sharing the crown of the father. Their memory was fixed in the Synaxarion under March 6.

Feast and commemoration

Conon and his son are commemorated on March 6 (church date; New Calendar civil March 6, Old Calendar civil March 19), together with the Forty-Two Martyrs of Amorion, who lead the day, and the other saints of March 6. Because March 6 falls almost always within the Great Fast, no proper Liturgy of the martyrs is ordinarily served on the day (see the note on readings under the martyrs of Amorion).

Hymns

Troparion — Tone 4

Thy Martyrs, O Lord, in their courageous contest have received the imperishable crown of thine, our God; for possessed of thy might, they cast down the tyrants and shattered the powerless boldness of the demons. By their prayers, O Christ our God, save our souls.

Original translation from the Greek

Iconography

Father and son are shown as martyrs — the elder Conon in the dark habit of a monk, bearded and aged, and the younger at his side, each holding the martyr's cross of confession; where the miracles are recalled, the father may be depicted healing the sick or casting out a demon. As minor saints kept in March they lie outside the range of the great illustrated menologion of the first half of the year, and no early identified image of them is known. No storable icon of certain identity has been found.

Disputed questions

Not to be confused with the Conons of March 5. The calendar keeps three distinct martyrs named Conon on two adjoining days, and they are easily confused. On March 5 are commemorated Conon of Isauria, the apostolic-age wonderworker of Bidana (first–second century), and Conon the Gardener of Mandon in Pamphylia (martyred under Decius, †c. 251); on March 6, this pair of monk-martyrs, Conon and his son Conon of Iconium (†c. 270–275). They are further distinct from Conon of Penthucla, the sixth-century baptizer of the Jordan (kept February 19). The three of March 5–6 are drawn together in memory by the shared name and the neighbouring days, but are wholly different persons of different places and ages.
The pairing and the number. The commemoration is of the father and the son together; some notices name only "Conon and his son," others speak of their companions, and the calendars vary in whether the son bears the same name in the notice. The constant datum is the martyrdom of the wonderworking father and his son at Iconium.