Martyrs of Samosata
The Holy Seven Martyrs of Samosata — Romanus, James, Philotheus, Hyperechius, Abibus, Julian and Paregorius
Martyr · d. c. 297, at Samosata
Commemorated 29 January — Martyrdom by torture and crucifixion at Samosata under Diocletian
The seven Martyrs of Samosata — Romanus, James, Philotheus, Hyperechius, Abibus, Julian and Paregorius — suffered together about the year 297, in the persecution of Diocletian, at Samosata, the ancient capital of Commagene on the upper Euphrates. Christians of the city, they refused to join the pagan sacrifices offered for the emperor's victory and openly denounced the worship of idols. For this they were seized and subjected to prolonged and savage torture — their bodies scored with iron, heavy fetters hung about their necks, and long imprisonment — and at the last were nailed to crosses, iron nails being driven into their heads while they hung. They are commemorated as a company on January 29, and are listed among the martyrs of the Greek Menaion and the synaxaria.
Samosata (Samsat, on the Euphrates in what is now south-eastern Turkey) was the old royal city of the kingdom of Commagene and, under Rome, a garrison town of the eastern frontier and the seat of a Christian community — the birthplace, a century earlier, of the writer Lucian, and later a see of the Church. The seven were men of the city who confessed Christ openly at the height of the great persecution under Diocletian and his colleagues (the traditional date is 297, within the years of the empire's most systematic assault on the Church in the East).
The occasion of their arrest, as the synaxaria transmit it, was a public pagan festival — sacrifices offered in thanksgiving for an imperial victory, at which the whole city was expected to take part. The seven not only held back from the rite but reproached the citizens for the folly of worshipping "gods that were no gods," idols of wood and stone that could neither see nor save. Denounced and brought before the authorities, they confessed themselves Christians and would not sacrifice.
Their martyrdom was drawn out through a sequence of tortures which the tradition records in some detail. Their bodies were raked and scraped with iron claws; heavy iron fetters were hung upon their necks and they were cast into prison to break their resolve; and when neither pain nor confinement moved them, they were condemned to death by crucifixion — fastened to crosses, and, the account adds, nails driven into their heads as they hung, so that they gave up their lives in a torment deliberately made to echo the Passion of the Lord they confessed. All seven were perfected on the same day and are numbered together among the martyrs.
The record is that of a synaxarion notice rather than a full passion: the names, the city, the reign, the refusal of the idols, and the manner of death are transmitted; of the individual men — which was elder, which younger, what each said — the sources preserve nothing further, and none is invented here. The Greek tradition gives the seven a place in the Menaion of January 29, and the Latin martyrologies received their memory as well.
Feast and commemoration
January 29 (church date; New Calendar civil January 29; Old Calendar civil February 11), in the Greek Menaion, the Slavonic calendars, and the OCA's lives of the day, where the seven are commemorated together on the day led by the translation of the relics of Ignatius the God-bearer. The year is given as 297 in the tradition. No proper service is appointed; where their memory is kept liturgically the common of several martyrs is used.
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
No verified pre-modern image of the seven Martyrs of Samosata has been identified on Wikimedia Commons under a secure attribution; the entry therefore stores no image and the martyrs are noted as wanting an icon. They would be depicted as a company of seven, in the dress of laymen of the East, holding the martyr's cross, and — in the narrative type — crucified together, in the manner the synaxarion records.
Disputed questions
- The roll of names. The seven names are given with the small variation usual in transmitted lists: James appears as Jacob; Abibus as Habib or Avim (the Syriac Ḥabib, "beloved"); Paregorius as Paregorus, Parigorius, or Paregoreas; Hyperechius as Hyperichius. The company is constant at seven, and the order in which the names are read varies between the Greek and the Slavonic calendars.
- Not to be confused. Abibus of Samosata is distinct from the deacon Abibus of Edessa, the confessor burned at Edessa (commemorated November 15 with Gurias and Samonas); and from the several other martyr-Abibi of the Syrian calendar. Philotheus of Samosata is not the Philotheus the Presbyter of the wonderworking memory. The distinguishing marks are the city (Samosata), the company of seven, and the day (January 29).