Isaurus the Deacon and Companions
The Holy Martyrs Isaurus the Deacon, Basil, Innocent, Felix, Hermias and Peregrinus, with Rufus and Rufinus, at Apollonia in Macedonia
Martyr · Deacon · d. c. 283–284
Commemorated 6 July — Beheading at Apollonia in Macedonia under Numerian
Isaurus was a deacon of Athens who, with five companions — Basil, Innocent, Felix, Hermias and Peregrinus — left the city and came to Apollonia in Macedonia, on the Via Egnatia, to preach Christ. They lodged in a cave outside the town and went in to the assemblies of the Christians; being discovered, they were brought before the magistrate and refused to sacrifice. Two men of the city itself, the brothers Rufus and Rufinus, confessed Christ at their trial and were condemned with them. All were beheaded, under the emperor Numerian (283–284).
Athenians on the Egnatian road
The company were Athenians. Isaurus, the leader among them, held the order of deacon — in the third century an office of preaching and administration close to the bishop, and one that made its holder conspicuous. Why they left Athens the synaxarion does not say; the natural reading of the account is that they went out deliberately as missionaries, and their route took them north-west into Macedonia.
Apollonia was a substantial town of the Mygdonian district between Thessalonica and Amphipolis, on the Via Egnatia, the great Roman highway across the Balkan peninsula; it is the Apollonia through which St Paul had passed on the way from Philippi to Thessalonica (Acts 17:1), and a Christian community had existed there since the apostolic generation. The travellers took shelter in a cave outside the walls, and from there went into the town to join the faithful at prayer and to preach.
Trial and martyrdom
They were denounced. Brought before the magistrate — the passion names him as the ruler's son, in some recensions Tripontius — they were questioned, would not offer sacrifice, and were tortured. The distinctive incident of the account is that the trial made converts among the onlookers: Rufus and Rufinus, men of standing in Apollonia and by most recensions brothers, declared themselves Christians in the hearing of the court and were sentenced on the spot. The whole company was taken out and beheaded by the sword.
The Byzantine synaxaria place the martyrdom under Numerian, whose brief reign (283–284) closes the series of third-century persecutions before the great one of Diocletian.
Feast and commemoration
July 6 (church date; Old Calendar civil July 19). The company is listed on this day in the Greek synaxaria, the Slavonic Menaion, and the calendars of the Antiochian Archdiocese and the Orthodox Church in America, under the principal commemoration of St Sisoes the Great. They have no proper office; they are named at the synaxarion reading and commemorated with the common of martyrs. Their memory is kept with particular attention in the Greek metropolis of Thessalonica and in the district of the ancient Apollonia.
Hymns
Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of martyrs)
Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their contest received incorruptible crowns from Thee our God; for possessing Thy strength, they cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. By their intercessions save our souls.
Kontakion — Tone 2 (common of martyrs)
Ye shone forth as bright stars in the firmament of the Church, O martyrs of Christ, and by your blood ye quenched the flame of ungodliness; wherefore we cry to you: Rejoice, boast of the faithful, Isaurus and ye that suffered with him.
Iconography
Isaurus is painted as a young or middle-aged deacon: in the sticharion with the orarion over the left shoulder, holding a censer in one hand and the martyr's cross in the other, or carrying a small casket. His companions stand ranged beside him as laymen in tunic and mantle, each with a cross, the two brothers Rufus and Rufinus often distinguished by the richer dress of citizens of rank. Where the martyrdom is depicted narratively, the scene is the standard group beheading, with the cave outside Apollonia sometimes indicated in the background. No pre-1900 icon of this company has been identified for this collection; the Menologion of Basil II, the usual first resort for minor martyrs, covers only September to February and does not reach their day.
Disputed questions
- The roll and the order of deaths. The recensions differ over who suffered first and in what manner. Some distinguish two executions — Felix, Hermias and Peregrinus with the two brothers, and Isaurus, Basil and Innocent afterwards — while others report a single beheading of all eight. The names themselves are stable in the Greek tradition; the narrative frame is not, and the magistrate's name Tripontius is carried by only part of it.
- Which Apollonia? More than a dozen ancient towns bore the name. The Macedonian Apollonia of the Via Egnatia is the one the synaxaria specify, and the detail of the Athenian origin of the martyrs fits a journey along that road; the Apollonia of Illyria (near Dyrrachium) has occasionally been proposed instead, which would bring these martyrs into the same coastal region as Astius of Dyrrachium, but there is no positive evidence for it.
- Isaurus or Isaurius? The Greek Ἴσαυρος ("the Isaurian") appears in Slavonic and English usage as Isaurius; it is one saint, not two.
- Historicity. No pre-Byzantine passion survives, and the reign of Numerian is a weakly attested setting for organised persecution; the commemoration is old and secure, the circumstantial detail is not.