Eikon

Dometian of Melitene

Our Father among the Saints Dometian, Bishop of Melitene

Bishop · b. c. 550 — d. 601, at Constantinople

Commemorated 10 January — Repose of Dometian of Melitene; kept within the afterfeast of the Theophany

Dometian (c. 550 – 601) was Bishop of Melitene in Armenia Minor, a kinsman of the emperor Maurice and one of the most trusted churchmen and statesmen of his reign. Married in his youth and soon widowed, he embraced the monastic life and was chosen bishop of Melitene while still only about thirty, governing his church with a wisdom and zeal for the Nicene faith that made him famous throughout the East. The emperor employed him repeatedly on affairs of the greatest weight — above all in Persia, where Dometian's diplomacy helped restore the exiled king Chosroes II to his throne and opened the way for Christian influence at the Persian court. Beloved and generous, distributing to the poor the rich gifts that were showered on him, he died at Constantinople in 601 and was buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles. He is kept on January 10, together with Gregory of Nyssa, within the afterfeast of the Theophany.

Bishop of Melitene

Dometian was born about the middle of the sixth century, of a distinguished family — the tradition makes him a nephew (or kinsman) of the emperor Maurice (582–602) — and given a first-rate education. In his youth he married, but his wife soon died, and the young widower turned from the world to the monastic life. His gifts of mind and character were such that, while still only about thirty years old, he was chosen and consecrated bishop of Melitene (modern Malatya), the metropolis of Armenia Minor on the upper Euphrates and one of the great sees of the eastern frontier. Learned and forceful, strong in word and in deed, and above all firm in the Orthodox faith in a region and an age troubled by the lingering divisions over Chalcedon, Dometian quickly won a name as a good and zealous shepherd.

The Persian embassies and Chosroes II

Dometian's episcopate fell in the years of the long Roman–Persian wars and of the great crisis in Persia when, in 590, the Persian king Hormizd IV was overthrown and his son Chosroes II (Khosrow Parviz) was in turn driven from the throne by the usurper Bahram and fled for refuge into Roman territory. The emperor Maurice resolved to restore Chosroes, and in the negotiations and the campaign that followed, Dometian — the emperor's kinsman, and a churchman of weight and eloquence — was among the chief agents of imperial policy in the East. More than once he crossed into Persia on the emperor's business, laboured to prevent conflict and to secure the interests of the Christians, and had a hand in the successful restoration of Chosroes II to his father's throne (591). The gratitude of the restored king, and the favour of Maurice, gave the Christian faith an opening at the Persian court, and the tradition credits Dometian with turning many to Christ in those years.

Charity and repose

Honoured by emperor and king alike, Dometian received rich gifts and large sums; these he did not keep, but poured out on the poor, the captive, and the church, so that he was beloved by all as a father. He was glorified by God with the gift of miracles, both in his life and after his death. He died — worn with his labours — at Constantinople in the year 601 (some reckonings January 11, 601; the chronicler Theophanes places his death in early 602), and was buried with honour in the imperial Church of the Holy Apostles. The Church keeps his memory on January 10.

Feast and commemoration

Dometian is kept universally on January 10 (church date; Old Calendar civil January 23), within the afterfeast of the Theophany, together with the other hierarch of the day, Gregory of Nyssa; the day's apolytikion names the two bishops, "the hierarchs Gregory and Dometian," together. The Antiochian, Greek, and Slavic calendars agree on the day.

Iconography

Dometian is depicted as a hierarch — a bishop vested in the phelonion or polystavrion and the omophorion, blessing and holding the Gospel-book — in the settled type of the episcopal saint; being of relatively youthful episcopate, he is sometimes shown with a shorter, darker beard than the aged fathers. The Menologion of Basil II supplies a miniature for January 10 depicting the burial of Dometian, the reliquary borne toward the church. No identity-verified pre-1900 image of Dometian has been secured for storage here; the entry is noted as wanting an icon.

Disputed questions

  • The year of his death. The synaxaria and the Menaion place Dometian's repose in 601; the ninth-century chronicler Theophanes the Confessor dates his death to January 602 and his burial in the Church of the Holy Apostles. The difference is of a single year, and the entry gives 601 with the note.
  • Not to be confused with the several other saints of like name — the martyr Dometius (Dometios) the Persian and other Dometii and Domitians of the calendar — nor read as the Roman emperor Domitian (the persecutor). This Dometian is the sixth-century bishop of Melitene, kinsman of Maurice, kept January 10.

Sources

  1. Synaxarion of Constantinople and Greek Menaion, January 10 — the life of Dometian (the family and kinship with Maurice, the youthful episcopate, the Persian embassies, the charity and the miracles) and the day's hymnography (the common apolytikion of the two hierarchs, Tone 4; the proper kontakion of Dometian, Tone 2).
  2. Theophanes the Confessor, Chronographia — the Persian crisis of 590–591 and the restoration of Chosroes II, and the date of Dometian's death (early 602) and his burial in the Church of the Holy Apostles.
  3. The historians of the reign of Maurice (Theophylact Simocatta and the Byzantine chroniclers) — for the Roman–Persian wars, the flight and restoration of Chosroes II, and the part of the emperor's kinsmen in the eastern policy.
  4. Orthodox Church in America, Lives of the Saints, January 10 (consulted live for enumeration and the traditional life), with the Great Synaxaristes for January 10.