Lupus of Thessalonica
The Holy Martyr Lupus, servant of the Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessalonica
Martyr · d. c. 306
Commemorated 23 August — Beheading at Thessalonica under Maximian Galerius, 26 October — Kept with his master Demetrius of Thessalonica in the Slavonic and Antiochian usage
Lupus was the servant (in the Greek books, the slave) of the Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessalonica, and stood by his master when the soldiers ran him through with their spears in the baths about the year 306. He took from the martyr's hand his ring, and steeped his own garment in the blood that flowed from the wound; and by these two relics, invoking the name of Demetrius, he worked so many healings and wonders in Thessalonica that the whole city was moved. He broke the idols of the pagans, was preserved unhurt through several attempts on his life, and at last gave himself up freely and was beheaded by order of the emperor Maximian Galerius. The Greek calendar keeps him on August 23; the Slavonic and Antiochian books keep him also with his master on October 26.
The servant at the martyrdom
Everything transmitted about Lupus hangs on a single scene. On the day that Demetrius, the young proconsular officer imprisoned in the vaults of the public baths of Thessalonica for confessing Christ, was speared to death at the order of the Caesar Galerius — the day after he had blessed Nestor to go out against the emperor's champion Lyaios — his household servant Lupus was present. The passion says that he took from his master's hand the ring he wore, and that he soaked his own outer garment (the orarion or cloak of his service) in the blood that ran from the spear-wounds.
What follows belongs to the oldest stratum of the cult of Demetrius: the martyr's power working through relics, and through the blood in particular, in the city that would make him its patron. Carrying the bloodied cloth and the ring, and calling on the name of Demetrius, Lupus healed the sick of Thessalonica in such numbers that the fame of it reached the authorities. The Greek and Slavonic accounts add that he did not confine himself to healing: he went at the idols of the city and shattered them, so that the pagans set upon him repeatedly — and every attempt failed, the sources saying that he was kept unharmed by the power of God, as though the appointed hour had not come.
The martyrdom
Lupus was not taken; he gave himself up. The tradition is careful about this: knowing what awaited him, and unwilling to be hunted while others suffered for sheltering him, he delivered himself into the hands of the persecutors of his own will. The emperor Maximian Galerius ordered his execution, and he was beheaded with the sword at Thessalonica, some little time after his master, about the year 306 — the persecution of Diocletian and Galerius being then at its height in Illyricum and Macedonia.
Certain of the later Slavonic recensions add that Lupus was still a catechumen at the time of his master's death and was baptised before his own martyrdom, or else that he was baptised in the blood of Demetrius and of his own contest. The Greek synaxarion says nothing of it, and nothing is asserted here beyond what the sources carry.
The relics of the blood and the ring
The bloodied garment and the ring pass out of the record with Lupus, but the pattern they set did not: the great basilica of Hagios Demetrios at Thessalonica became, above all other shrines of the Byzantine world, a place of myrrh and of blood-relics, and the "little bottles" (koutrouvia) of myrrh from the martyr's tomb, stamped with his image and with that of his servant, were carried across the whole Christian world. In the iconography of the Thessalonian shrine Lupus regularly stands as the first witness of that stream of healing.
Feast and commemoration
August 23 (church date; Old Calendar civil September 5) — the day of the leavetaking (apodosis) of the Dormition of the Theotokos, which governs the whole office, so that Lupus, who stands first among the saints of the day in the Greek synaxarion, has only his notice and distich and no proper service in the printed books. He is commemorated a second time on October 26 with Demetrius in the Slavonic and Antiochian calendars. His veneration is strongest at Thessalonica, and among the Slavs, where the name Lupp (Лупп) passed into common use from this martyr.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a martyr)
Thy martyr Lupus, 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
Lupus is written as a young layman-martyr, beardless or with the first down of a beard, in tunic and short mantle, holding the cross of the martyrs; his distinguishing attributes, where an iconographer gives him any, are the ring and the blood-stained cloth, and he is frequently painted beside Demetrius — in the cycles of the Thessalonian basilica and in the martyrdom scenes of the Menologia, a small figure at the edge of the baths receiving the ring from his master's hand. On the lead and silver koutrouvia ampullae of Thessalonica he appears with Demetrius as a witness of the myrrh. No pre-1900 icon of Lupus alone has been located for this collection; the Menologion of Basil II, which would ordinarily supply a minor martyr's miniature, covers only September to February and has nothing for August 23.
Disputed questions
- Which day is his? The Greek Menaion and synaxarion give Lupus August 23 as his own day, with his own distich. The Slavonic books (and Antiochian usage following them) keep the martyr Lupus on October 26 together with Demetrius, and Russian calendars print him on both. Neither is a mistake: August 23 is his proper commemoration, October 26 his commemoration as the servant of the Great Martyr. Both are recorded in this entry's feasts.
- Servant or soldier? The Greek word used of him (ὑπηρέτης, δοῦλος) is that of a household servant or slave attached to Demetrius; later retellings, uneasy at a slave handling the relics, occasionally promote him to a soldier of the martyr's retinue. The older reading is the humbler one, and it is the point of the story: the first minister of the Great Martyr's wonders was his slave.
- The year. The martyrdom of Demetrius is generally placed in 306 (some sources 304); Lupus follows within the same persecution, so his own year is given as c. 306 with the same uncertainty attaching to it.