Simeon of Persia and Companions

The Church of Persia and the persecution of Shapur

Simeon was archbishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the twin royal cities on the Tigris that were the seat of the Persian kings and the primatial see of the Church of the East. When Shapur II — at war with the Christian Roman empire — came to regard his Christian subjects as a fifth column, he laid a double tax on them and demanded that the bishops themselves collect it from their people, making the Church the instrument of its own oppression. Simeon refused: he would not turn shepherd into tax-gatherer, nor lay this burden on the poor of his flock. For this refusal, and for his rejection of the worship of the sun, he was denounced to the king as an enemy of the state and a friend of the Roman Caesar.

Usthazanes

Brought in chains before Shapur, Simeon would not prostrate himself as of old. Among the king's household was the aged Usthazanes, a eunuch of high rank who had been Simeon's own tutor and foster-father, and who, under pressure, had lately worshipped the sun and fallen from Christ. Seeing him, Simeon turned his face away and would not greet him. Struck to the heart, Usthazanes cast off his fine robes, put on mourning, and lamented: "If I dare not look on my friend Simeon, how shall I stand before God whom I have denied?" He openly proclaimed himself a Christian, and, unmoved by the king's grief and rage, was beheaded — asking only that a herald declare he died not for treason but for Christ, that others might not be deceived by his former fall. So the lapsed tutor went before his pupil into the kingdom, the first-fruits of the martyrdom.

The martyrdom of Simeon and his company

Simeon was kept for Great Friday. With him were brought out a great multitude of the clergy and faithful of Seleucia-Ctesiphon — bishops, priests and deacons — all condemned for the one confession. He encouraged them, and one by one they were beheaded before his eyes, that the sight might break him; instead each went to death rejoicing, Simeon blessing them. Last of all, having seen his priests Abdechalaas and Ananias and the rest crowned, Simeon himself was beheaded, on the Great Friday of the year 344 — the same day, the Church notes, on which the Lord suffered. The number of those who died with him over that Pascha the Syriac Acts reckon in the scores of named clergy; the Greek synaxarion and later tradition speak of a thousand and more martyrs of Persia crowned in those days, so that Simeon stands at the head of the whole company of the Persian martyrs under Shapur.