Eupsychius of Caesarea (under Julian)
The Holy Martyr Eupsychius of Caesarea, martyred under Julian the Apostate
Martyr · d. c. 362
Commemorated 9 April — Martyrdom under Julian the Apostate at Caesarea
This Eupsychius was a young Christian of noble family in Caesarea of Cappadocia who, newly married, took part in the pulling-down of the temple of Fortune (Tychaion) in his city, and for this — when Julian the Apostate came to the throne and sought to avenge the pagan cult — was seized and beheaded about the year 362. His memory was especially dear to the Cappadocian church, and St Basil the Great kept his feast and mentioned it in his letters. He is commemorated on April 9, and is closely bound up with (and by many scholars identified as a doublet of) the Eupsychius of Caesarea kept September 7.
Eupsychius belonged to a distinguished Christian family of Caesarea in Cappadocia. While the emperor Constantius still reigned, the Christians of the city — Eupsychius among them, though he had but lately been married — took part in the destruction of the temple of the goddess Fortune (Tyche), the last great pagan shrine of Caesarea.
When Julian the Apostate succeeded to the empire and set himself to restore paganism, he fell upon Caesarea with special anger for the destruction of the temple: he stripped the city of its rank and its very name, laid heavy burdens on its Christians, and demanded satisfaction for the idol. Eupsychius was arrested as one of the chief authors of the deed. Urged to sacrifice, he refused, and after tortures was beheaded. The Christians buried him with honour, and his tomb became a place of healings; St Basil the Great, bishop of Caesarea a decade later, kept the annual feast of Eupsychius as one of the great days of his church and invited other bishops to it in his letters — a rare and valuable early witness to the cult of a local martyr.
Feast and commemoration
April 9 (church date; Old Calendar civil April 22), within Great Lent. Of particular honour in the Cappadocian church of Basil the Great.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a martyr)
Thy martyr Eupsychius, 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
Eupsychius is shown as a young man in the martyr's dress holding a cross. No pre-1900 icon of him alone has been identified for this collection.
Disputed questions
- The two Eupsychii of Caesarea. The calendars keep an Eupsychius of Caesarea on September 7 (dated to the persecution of Hadrian) and this Eupsychius on April 9 (under Julian, †362). The Julian-era martyr, whose feast Basil the Great certainly kept, is the historically secure one; many scholars (Delehaye and others) hold the two to be a doubling of a single Cappadocian martyr, the September commemoration being a duplicate that acquired a different emperor and date. The two entries are kept distinct here, as the calendar keeps them, with this question recorded in both.