Severus and Artemidorus
The Holy Martyrs Severus and Artemidorus
Martyr
Commemorated 8 September
Severus and Artemidorus are martyrs commemorated together on September 8, each known from a single line of the Greek synaxarion: Severus was perfected by the sword, Artemidorus by fire. No time, place, or passion narrative is transmitted for either. Their memory is kept under the shadow of the Great Feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos, preserved by the synaxarion verses that honour their readiness for suffering.
The Synaxarion of Constantinople for September 8 carries two adjacent notices: "On the same day, the holy Severus was perfected by the sword," and "On the same day, the holy Artemidorus was perfected by fire." Nothing else survives — no date, no city, no persecutor — and the two are joined here, as in the calendar listings that carry them, only by the day they share and the absence of any independent cultus for either.
What the tradition does preserve is a distich for each. For Severus: "'I am ready to bear every suffering,' said Severus; 'is the sword, then, for me?'" (Ἕτοιμός εἰμι πρὸς τὸ πᾶν οἴσειν πάθος, Σεβῆρος εἶπε, καὶ πρός με τὸ ξίφος;) — the martyr's readiness outrunning the executioner's stroke. For Artemidorus: "How strong Artemidorus is to leap down, he shows in very deed while the fire blazes" (Ἀρτεμίδωρος ὡς καθάλλεσθαι σθένει, Καὶ τοῦ πυρὸς φλέγοντος ἔργῳ δεικνύει) — the image of the martyr springing into the flames of his own will. The names give no purchase for localisation: Severus is Latin and ubiquitous, Artemidorus ("gift of Artemis") a common Greek name of Asia Minor and beyond.
Feast and commemoration
September 8 (church date; Old Calendar civil September 21), carried in the Synaxarion of Constantinople and the Greek Menaion. The day belongs to the Great Feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos, and no service of the martyrs is appointed; the OCA's calendar for September 8 omits them, while the Greek synaxaria retain them.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4 (from the common of martyrs)
Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their contest received incorruptible crowns from Thee, our God; for possessing Thy strength they cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. By their intercessions save our souls.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
No pre-modern icon of either martyr has been identified. They would be depicted as martyrs bearing crosses, with the instruments of their perfection — the sword for Severus, the fire for Artemidorus.
Disputed questions
- The pairing. The synaxarion gives Severus and Artemidorus separate notices with different deaths (sword; fire), so they were not necessarily fellow-sufferers in one contest. Greek calendar listings customarily name them together as "the martyrs Severus and Artemidorus," and this entry follows that calendrical pairing while recording that the union is one of the calendar, not of an attested joint martyrdom.
- Not to be confused with the martyr Severus commemorated with Memnon the Centurion on August 20, nor with other bearers of either name in the calendars.