Danax the Reader

The Holy Martyr Danax the Reader

Martyr · d. 2nd century

Danax was a reader (anagnostes) of the church at Auleon in the region of Illyria (Macedonia), martyred in the second century when a band of pagans overran the place. Charged with the care of the sacred vessels, he sought to save the holy things of the church from profanation when the raiders came; seized by them and commanded to worship their idols, he refused, confessed Christ, and was cut down with a sword. The tradition remembers him among the martyrs of January 16, a minor saint known from a single synaxarion notice.

Little is transmitted of Danax beyond the bare account of his office and his death. He served as a reader — a minor cleric charged with the reading of the Scriptures in the assembly and, in his case, with the keeping of the church's sacred vessels — in a church at Auleon (Aulon) in the country the sources call Illyria or Macedonia, in the second century. When a company of pagans fell upon the district, Danax's concern was for the holy things committed to him: he sought to carry off and hide the sacred vessels lest they be seized and profaned. He was caught in the attempt, and his captors demanded that he do reverence to their gods. Refusing utterly, and confessing the name of Christ, he was run through with a sword and so received the crown of martyrdom. The synaxarion preserves no more than this; his memory is that of a faithful servant of the altar who died guarding what was holy.

Feast and commemoration

January 16 (church date; New Calendar civil January 16; Old Calendar civil January 29), kept with the Veneration of the Chains of the Apostle Peter and the martyr-brothers Peusippus, Elasippus and Mesippus. He is a minor commemoration of the day, named in the Greek Menaion and the Slavonic calendars without a proper office. (His minor order — that of reader — has no taxonomy term and is noted here in prose; see the project's record of open questions.)

Hymns

Troparion — Tone 4

Thy Martyr Danax, O Lord, in his courageous contest hath received from thee, our God, a crown incorruptible; for possessed of thy might, he cast down the tyrants and utterly destroyed the powerless boldness of the demons. By his supplications, O Christ our God, save thou our souls.

Original translation from the Greek

Iconography

No storable public-domain image identified as certainly depicting this saint has been found. He would be shown in the manner of an early martyr and minor cleric — a young man in the reader's tunic, holding a cross or a book, or bearing the sacred vessels he died to save.