Eugene and Macarius of Antioch
The Holy Presbyters and Confessors Eugene and Macarius of Antioch
Confessor · Martyr · Priest · d. 363, in exile
Commemorated 19 February
Eugene and Macarius were presbyters of the Church of Antioch who, under the emperor Julian the Apostate (361–363), boldly reproached him to his face for his apostasy from Christ and his restoration of the worship of idols. For this they were tortured and sent into a harsh exile — the tradition places it in the desert of Mauretania (or Arabia) — where, near a spring of poisonous water made sweet and healing by their prayer, they ended their lives about the year 363, confessors who sealed their witness with death. They are commemorated on February 19.
Eugene and Macarius were priests of Antioch on the Orontes, the great Christian metropolis of the Syrian East, serving the Church there in the brief and bitter reign of Julian (361–363) — the nephew of Constantine who, raised a Christian, forsook the faith and set himself to revive paganism and to press the Church on every side. When the apostate emperor came to Antioch, the two presbyters did not hold their peace: they openly denounced his apostasy and his sacrificing to idols, calling him back to the Christ he had abandoned. Julian, who used mockery and pressure more than open bloodshed but did not spare those who defied him, had them seized and tortured, and then condemned them to exile in a remote and desolate place — the accounts name a district of Mauretania, others a wilderness of Arabia.
At the place of their banishment, the tradition relates, there was a spring of bitter and poisonous water that none could drink; the two confessors, by their prayer, made it sweet and wholesome, so that it became a source of life and even of healing to the country round. There, worn by their sufferings and their exile, they reposed about the year 363 — the same year that saw the death of Julian himself on the Persian campaign and the passing of his persecution. The Church numbers them among the confessors who suffered for Christ under the Apostate, and, dying of their torments in banishment, among the martyrs of that reign.
Feast and commemoration
February 19 (church date; New Calendar civil February 19; Old Calendar civil March 4), a synaxarion commemoration of the confessor-presbyters, kept in the Greek Menaion, the Slavic calendars, and by the OCA. No proper service is appointed; the common of martyrs is used. Their memory falls on the day led by the apostle Archippus and honoured for the martyr Philothei of Athens. As saints of the Church of Antioch, the two confessors have a natural place in the Antiochian commemoration of the day.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4 (from the common of martyrs)
Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their courageous contest received incorruptible crowns from thee our God; for possessed of thy might, they cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble arrogance of the demons. By their prayers, O Christ God, save our souls.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
The stored image is the miniature of the Menologion of Basil II (Constantinople, 985): the two confessors stand in prayer in the wilderness of their exile, the fire of their trial at the left and the light of heaven falling on them from above — the manuscript's rendering of their confession. A portrait type would show two priests in phelonion and epitrachelion, holding crosses in the manner of confessors.