Irenaeus of Sirmium
The Holy Hieromartyr Irenaeus, Bishop of Sirmium
Hieromartyr · Bishop · d. c. 304
Commemorated 26 March — Martyrdom of the bishop of Sirmium under Diocletian, 23 August — Commemoration in the Greek Menaion
Irenaeus was the young bishop of Sirmium in Pannonia (the modern Sremska Mitrovica), martyred about the year 304 in the Great Persecution of Diocletian. His authentic Acts — one of the more historically secure of the early martyr-records — preserve his examination before the governor Probus and his steadfast confession; he was beheaded and his body cast into the river Save.
Irenaeus was bishop of Sirmium, a great city of the Danube frontier and an imperial residence, while still a young man, married and with a household. When the edicts of Diocletian and the persecution reached Pannonia, he was arrested and brought before the governor Probus. The Acts record the interrogation with unusual vividness: again and again Probus urged him to sacrifice, appealing to his youth, to his parents, wife and children who wept and entreated him, and to the tortures prepared; and again and again Irenaeus answered that he had a Father in heaven and children in God, and that he could not deny Christ. "I have children," he said, "but they and I alike have one Father, God; if I confess Him, I do not lose them, but if I deny Him, I destroy both them and myself."
After imprisonment and torture Probus, unable to move him, at last passed sentence. Irenaeus was led to the bridge over the Save; there, having prayed for the Church and for his people, he was beheaded, and his body was thrown into the river. His memory was kept at Sirmium, which in the fourth century became a notable centre of the cult of the martyrs.
Feast and commemoration
March 26 (church date; Old Calendar civil April 8); some Western and Slavic calendars keep him on August 23. Within Great Lent.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a hieromartyr)
And by thy manner of life thou didst attain unto the reward of the wise, O hieromartyr Irenaeus: for by teaching well thou hast gained the talents entrusted to thee; thou wast not silent in the midst of trials, but didst offer thyself unto death for Christ. Wherefore, intercede with Him that our souls may be saved.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Irenaeus is shown as a young bishop in the omophorion, holding the Gospel, sometimes with the river of his martyrdom beside him. No pre-1900 icon of him alone has been identified for this collection.
Disputed questions
- Not to be confused with Irenaeus of Lyons (the second-century Father and hieromartyr, disciple of Polycarp) or with Irenaeus, deacon of Rome — distinct saints of the same name. This Irenaeus is the bishop of Sirmium of the Diocletianic persecution.
- Not to be confused, further, with the Irenaeus of the company Irenaeus, Irene and Peregrinus, martyrs said to have been burned at Thessalonica under Diocletian and commemorated May 5 — a notice whose Latin manuscript tradition varies and whose localisation has been doubted, some students of the martyrologies suspecting a doublet formed out of the Danubian and Balkan Irenaeus-entries of the same persecution, of which this bishop of Sirmium is the best attested.