Maurice of Apamea and his Companions
The Holy Martyrs Maurice of Apamea, his son Photinus, and the Seventy Soldiers with them
Martyr · d. c. 305
Commemorated 22 February — Martyrdom at Apamea in Syria — stung to death by insects after being smeared with honey
Maurice (died c. 305) was the commander of the garrison of Apamea on the Orontes in Syria, martyred under the emperor Galerius Maximian together with his son Photinus and the seventy soldiers of his command — of whom only two names, Theodore and Philip, are remembered. Denounced as Christians and refusing to sacrifice, they were subjected to a torture of studied cruelty: led to a marshy place swarming with mosquitoes, wasps and gadflies, stripped, smeared with honey, and bound to stakes, they were left for ten days to be stung and consumed by the insects under the sun, tormented by thirst and hunger, while they prayed and glorified God. The commander was made to watch his son die before him. At the last the martyrs were beheaded. They are a company of Antiochian Syria, kept on February 22.
Apamea and the commander Maurice
Apamea (Ἀπάμεια) was one of the four great cities of the Syrian Tetrapolis, set on the middle Orontes south of Antioch — a Seleucid foundation, a military and commercial centre, and by the fourth century a city with a substantial Christian population within the patriarchate of Antioch. Maurice was the commander (stratelates / dux) of its garrison, a Christian who held his soldiers, the tradition says, in the same faith: the company of seventy men under his charge confessed Christ with him. He had a son, Photinus, a young man who shared his father's faith and would share his death.
Arrest and confession under Galerius Maximian
The martyrdom is set in the last and fiercest of the pagan persecutions, that of Diocletian and his colleagues, and specifically under the eastern emperor Galerius Maximian (Maximian Galerius, 305–311), about the year 305. Maurice and his soldiers were denounced to the emperor — or to his officers — as Christians who would not offer sacrifice to the gods. Brought to trial, the commander answered for himself and his men that they were soldiers of Christ before they were soldiers of the emperor, and refused the sacrifice. Their military rank and their arms were stripped from them, and, when neither threat nor flattery moved them, the judge devised for them a death of deliberate refinement.
The martyrdom: honey and the insects
The soldiers were led out of the city to a low, marshy place — a swamp thick with mosquitoes, wasps, gadflies and stinging flies. There they were stripped naked, their bodies were smeared over with honey, and they were bound fast to stakes or trees in the open, so that they could neither move nor drive off the insects. Under the summer sun the swarms settled on the honey-covered flesh and stung them without relief; and to the torment of the stinging was added the torment of thirst and hunger, for they were given nothing, and left so for ten days. Through the whole ordeal, the account says, the martyrs did not cease to pray and to glorify God, and their constancy did not break.
To the father, Maurice, was reserved a sharper pain: he was made to watch the death of his son Photinus, killed before his eyes — the tradition places the boy's death at the beginning of the ordeal, that the sight might break the father's resolve — and Maurice, so far from yielding, gave thanks that his son had been counted worthy to go before him to Christ. When after ten days the insects had done their work and the martyrs still lived and still confessed, the sentence was completed with the sword: all were beheaded. Their bodies were left unburied, but the Christians of Apamea came by night and buried them secretly at the place of their death, where — the tradition adds — healings were afterward worked.
Of the seventy soldiers the synaxaria transmit only two names, Theodore and Philip; the rest are held in the anonymity of their company, seventy men of one garrison who died together for one confession.
Feast and commemoration
February 22 (church date; New Calendar civil February 22; Old Calendar civil March 7). The martyrs are kept on this day across the Greek, Slavic, and Antiochian calendars, and belong particularly to the memory of Syria within the patriarchate of Antioch, Apamea being a city of that patriarchate. The synaxaria number the company variously — "Maurice and 70 soldiers," or "Maurice, his son Photinus, Theodore, Philip and 70 soldiers" — the naming of Theodore and Philip being the fuller form. The death by insects after smearing with honey is the fixed and distinctive detail by which the day is remembered.
Not to be confused with Maurice, commander of the Theban Legion (Saint Maurice of Agaunum, martyred with his legion in the Valais under Maximian, kept in the West on September 22): a different martyr-soldier of the same persecution-era and the same military rank and name, but of the Latin West, not of Syrian Apamea. The two are distinct companies with distinct passions.
Hymns
Troparion
Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their contest received crowns of incorruption from Thee our God; for possessed of Thy might, they cast down the tyrants and shattered the powerless insolence of demons. By their supplications, O Christ our God, save our souls.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Maurice and his companions are depicted as a company of soldier-martyrs — men in military dress or stripped for their torment — and, in the narrative type proper to their passion, bound to stakes in a marsh, smeared with honey and set upon by clouds of insects, with the commander looking on his son, the scene of their distinctive martyrdom. No identity-verified pre-1900 image of Maurice of Apamea was located (the name collides with Maurice of the Theban Legion, whose Western iconography is abundant and must not be substituted); the entry is noted as wanting an icon.