Procopius the Reader
The Holy Martyr Procopius the Reader of Caesarea in Palestine
Martyr · d. 303
Commemorated 22 November
Procopius the Reader (†303) was a reader of the church of Jerusalem, born at Scythopolis, who led a strict ascetic life and was granted the gift of casting out demons. Arrested in the first days of the great persecution of Diocletian and brought before the governor at Caesarea in Palestine, he refused to sacrifice to the idols and was beheaded — the first martyr of that persecution in Palestine, whose death Eusebius witnessed and recorded. He is commemorated on November 22 and is to be distinguished from the far more widely venerated Procopius the Great Martyr of Caesarea, commemorated July 8.
Procopius (Greek Προκόπιος) came, Eusebius reports, from Scythopolis in Palestine, and served the church of Jerusalem as a reader — one of the minor orders, whose office was to read the Scriptures aloud in the assembly. Beyond his reading he is remembered as a man of severe ascetic discipline and of the Scriptures, an ardent preacher of the word, to whom the Lord granted the power to drive out unclean spirits. Eusebius adds that he held two further offices in the church, as interpreter (translating the Greek readings into Aramaic for the people) and as an exorcist.
His martyrdom stands at the very opening of the persecution of Diocletian. In the first year of that persecution (303) he was taken from Scythopolis to Caesarea in Palestine — the provincial capital and seat of the governor — with other confessors. Brought before the tribunal and commanded to sacrifice to the gods, he refused; ordered then to offer libations to the four emperors of the tetrarchy, he answered with a line of Homer against the folly of divided rule — "the rule of many is not good; let there be one ruler, one king" — words the court took as defiance. He was condemned on the spot and beheaded. Eusebius, an eyewitness of the Palestinian persecution, names him the first of its martyrs, and it is on his testimony that the historical Procopius is known.
Feast and commemoration
November 22 (church date; Old Calendar civil December 5), within the afterfeast of the Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple and the Nativity Fast. The Greek and Slavic calendars and the OCA keep his memory on this day as "the Reader, at Caesarea in Palestine." He has no proper service; the common of a martyr is sung.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4
Thy martyr Procopius, O Lord, in his struggle received an incorruptible crown from thee our God; for having thy might he cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble arrogance of the demons. By his prayers, O Christ God, save our souls.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Procopius the Reader has no distinct iconographic type of his own and is easily displaced in image collections by the great-martyr of the same name and city; he is properly shown as a young martyr in civil dress, without the arms and armour of the soldier-saint. No storable pre-modern icon of verified identity — unambiguously the reader and not the great-martyr — has yet been secured for this entry.
Disputed questions
- Not to be confused with Procopius the Great Martyr of Caesarea (commemorated July 8), a soldier-martyr of the same Diocletianic persecution and the same city of Caesarea, whose long legendary Acts made him one of the most celebrated of the great-martyrs of the East. The two are distinct: this Procopius is the reader and exorcist of Jerusalem and Scythopolis, a historical figure known from Eusebius, martyred by beheading; the great-martyr is a military saint of the developed passion-literature. The shared name, city, and persecution make the confusion easy, and it is old — modern reference works, including the Wikidata item Q2466161 carried in this entry's frontmatter, still conflate the two.
- Not to be confused with Procopius of Ustyug (†1303), the first fool-for-Christ of the Russian land, who is kept on the great martyr's day, July 8.
- Century of repose. His death in 303 falls at the very end of the third century of persecutions but in the fourth calendar century; he is indexed under the fourth century by the convention of this collection, though many sources style him a martyr "of the third century."