Three Martyrs of Galatia
The Holy Three Martyrs who suffered in Galatia
Martyr
Commemorated 28 June — Martyrdom in Galatia; names and date not transmitted
Three martyrs who suffered in Galatia, the inland province of Asia Minor evangelised by the Apostle Paul, are commemorated in the Greek synaxarion on June 28. Their names are not transmitted, nor the persecution, nor the manner of their death; the Church keeps them by their number and their country.
Galatia
Galatia took its name from the Celtic Galatae who crossed into Asia Minor in the third century before Christ and settled the high plateau around Ancyra (Ankara), Pessinus and Tavium. It became a Roman province in 25 BC, and it is the region to which the Epistle to the Galatians is addressed — the churches of Paul's first and second journeys, whether one takes the "north Galatian" or the "south Galatian" reading of the letter's destination. It was thus Christian ground from the apostolic age.
It was also, in consequence, well-supplied with martyrs, and the synaxaria carry a considerable Galatian sanctorale: Clement of Ancyra and Agathangelus, Plato of Ancyra, the Seven Virgins of Ancyra with the bishop Theodotus, Julian of Galatia with his companions, and others. The anonymous three of June 28 belong to this stratum, and no more can be said of them than that.
What is transmitted
The Greek books give only the number, the province and the fact of martyrdom. Notices of this kind — "three martyrs in Galatia," "two children," "seventy at Scythopolis," all of which stand together on June 28 — come from the layer of the Synaxarion of Constantinople in which local memories were entered as they reached the capital, often from a martyrology or a church dedication, and where the names had already been lost.
Feast and commemoration
June 28 (church date; Old Calendar civil July 11), in the Greek books; the Slavonic Menaion does not carry the commemoration. No proper service; the common of many martyrs is used.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of many 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
Anonymous martyrs are painted in the Byzantine calendar-icons as a group of undifferentiated figures — here three, standing side by side in tunic and mantle, each holding the cross of martyrdom — identified by the inscription of the day rather than by name or attribute. No image of these three is known and none has been stored for this collection.
Disputed questions
- No names, no date, no city. century is omitted; the entry indexes under unknown.
- Not to be confused with the named Galatian companies of three that appear elsewhere in the calendar, and in particular with the martyrs kept with Julian of Galatia, or with the three martyrs commemorated in other provinces. Where a derivative list supplies names for the three of June 28, the names have been imported from a different notice; none is transmitted in the Greek synaxarion for this day.