Peter of Capitolias

The Holy Hieromartyr Peter of Capitolias

Hieromartyr · Priest · d. 715

Peter of Capitolias (†715) was a learned priest of Capitolias in Transjordan — the modern Beit Ras in northern Jordan — who was put to death under the Umayyad caliph al-Walid for publicly confessing Christ and rejecting Islam. Mutilated by stages — tongue, hands, feet — and finally crucified, he is among the earliest of the martyrs of the Church under Islamic rule, and his memory belongs to the Antiochian-Jerusalem borderlands where that long witness began.

The tradition relates that Peter was a married priest of Capitolias in the Decapolis, a man of education who raised three children and, after his wife's death, embraced the ascetic life. Falling gravely ill, and fearing to die without having confessed Christ openly before the authorities of the new religion, he summoned the notables of the town and declared his faith in Christ and his rejection of the Prophet of Islam in terms that made trial inevitable. Reported to the authorities and examined, he repeated the confession; the caliph al-Walid ordered an exemplary punishment. The sentence was carried out at Capitolias by stages, calculated to break him: his tongue was cut out — the tradition relates that he continued to speak clearly — then his hands and feet were struck off on successive days, his eyes were put out, and he was finally crucified and his body burned, in January of 715. The Church keeps his memory on October 4.

Feast and commemoration

October 4 (church date; Old Calendar civil October 17), among the commemorations of the day. No proper service is appointed; the common of a hieromartyr is used.

Hymns

Troparion — Tone 4 (from the common of a hieromartyr)

Sharing the ways of the apostles, and a successor upon their throne, thou didst find thy deeds a ladder to divine vision, O inspired one; wherefore, rightly dividing the word of truth, thou didst suffer for the faith even unto blood. O hieromartyr Peter, intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Original translation from the Greek

Iconography

No pre-modern icon of Peter of Capitolias has been identified; he would be shown as a priest-martyr bearing the cross, with the instruments of his mutilation sometimes indicated. (The Menologion of Basil II has no miniature for him.)

Disputed questions

Office. The Byzantine synaxaria commemorate him as a hieromartyr; some later notices style him bishop of Capitolias, while the older passio makes him a priest. The priest's rank is followed here, with the episcopal styling recorded.
Date. The martyrdom is fixed by the passio to January 715 (the last months of al-Walid I); the calendar's October 4 placement is the commemorative date. A minority tradition dates the martyrdom to 743–744 under al-Walid II; the earlier dating, supported by the detailed passio, is followed.
Sources. A detailed Greek passio survives (known through a Georgian version and fragments), and an encomium is attributed in part of the tradition to John of Damascus, his near contemporary in the same caliphate — the attribution is uncertain and is recorded here as such.