Synetus of Rome
The Holy Martyr Synetus of Rome
Martyr · d. c. 270–275
Commemorated 12 December — Martyrdom
Synetus of Rome (died c. 270–275) was a reader of the Roman Church in the third century who was tortured and beheaded for his confession of Christ under the emperor Aurelian. His Greek name, meaning "a man of understanding," is rendered in the Slavonic books as Razumnik.
Synetus was a Roman by birth and served as a reader in the Church of Rome under Pope Sixtus — the sources place his ministry in the pontificate of Sixtus II (257–258). During the persecution under the emperor Aurelian (270–275) he was seized, subjected to torture, and beheaded for the bravery of his confession of faith. Beyond the fact of his office and his martyrdom the synaxaria preserve little; his name — Greek Synetos, "the intelligent" or "man of reason," Slavonic Razumnik — is itself remembered by the tradition, and the Slavonic service books commemorate him under that form.
Feast and commemoration
Synetus is commemorated on December 12 (church date; Old Calendar civil December 25), within the Nativity Fast. His office of reader is noted by the sources; the taxonomy of this collection has no term for the minor orders, so he is classified simply among the martyrs, with the office recorded here in prose.
Iconography
The stored image is the miniature of the Menologion of Basil II (Constantinople, 985): the young martyr, seized by the executioner amid the hills, falls beneath the raised sword — the manuscript's beheading type for his December commemoration. A portrait icon would show a young man in the tunic of a reader, holding the martyr's cross.