Tigrius and Eutropius
The Holy Hieromartyr Tigrius the Presbyter and the Martyr Eutropius the Reader, of Constantinople
Hieromartyr · Priest · Martyr · d. c. 404–406 (Eutropius under torture at Constantinople; Tigrius in exile in Mesopotamia)
Commemorated 16 June — The clergy of John Chrysostom tortured after his exile
Tigrius, a presbyter, and Eutropius, a reader, of the church of Constantinople, were clergy of John Chrysostom who stood by their archbishop when he was driven from the city in 404 and paid for it with their lives. When the Great Church and the senate house burned on the night of Chrysostom's expulsion, his party — the "Johannites" — were charged with arson; under the city prefect Optatus the two clerics were interrogated and tortured. Eutropius, a young man conspicuous for chastity, was hung up and scraped with iron, thrown into prison, and died in a second session of torture; his body, cast out to the dogs, was recovered by the faithful at night, and the tradition says that angelic singing was heard over the burial. Tigrius, a gentle and open-handed pastor, was scourged, stretched by hands and feet, and banished to Mesopotamia, where he died. They are among the earliest of that company of confessors whose crime was loyalty to a bishop, and their memory is kept on June 16.
The clergy of Chrysostom
Both men belonged to the clergy of Constantinople under St John Chrysostom (†407). Tigrius was a presbyter; the historians describe him as mild, merciful and lavish in his charities, and record that he had been a slave in a rich household, was freed, and was afterwards enrolled among the clergy — a eunuch, according to the fifth-century account, which in that period meant a man of the imperial or great households, and one whose promotion could be used against him. Eutropius was a reader, still young, remembered for purity of life.
The fire and the accusation
In June 404 Chrysostom was taken out of the city into his second and final exile. On the night of his removal a fire broke out that consumed the Great Church of Hagia Sophia and the neighbouring senate house; the accusation was immediately laid at the door of his supporters, who had refused to communicate with the intruded archbishop and were already being hunted out of the churches. The prefect of the city, Optatus — a pagan, in the account of the church historians, and hostile to the Johannite clergy — took the investigation in hand.
The tortures
Eutropius was seized first. He was hung up and his sides scored with iron claws, and when he would neither accuse himself nor betray the names of others he was thrown into prison; brought out for a second examination and tortured again, he died under the hands of his tormentors. His body was thrown out unburied, to be eaten by dogs; the Christians of the city took it up secretly by night and buried it, and the tradition preserved with the passion says that singing was heard in the air at the grave.
Tigrius was stripped, bound hand and foot, stretched on the rack and beaten with thongs, and when nothing was got from him he was sentenced to exile in Mesopotamia, where he ended his life in banishment. The Church counts them both among the martyrs — Tigrius as a hieromartyr, though he died a confessor's death far from the city rather than under the sword, and Eutropius as one who was killed outright.
Veneration
Their names are entered in the synaxarion of the Great Church for June 16 and passed from it into the Slavonic books, where they are kept as the hieromartyr Tigrius and the martyr Eutropius of Constantinople. They have no proper service; their notice is read within the service of St Tychon of Amathus. Their historical value is considerable out of all proportion to the brevity of the notice: they are named in the ecclesiastical histories of the fifth century, which makes them among the best-attested martyrs of the whole June calendar, and they document the persecution of the Johannites — Christians tortured by a Christian government for adhering to a deposed bishop.
Feast and commemoration
June 16 (church date; Old Calendar civil June 29), by synaxarion notice within the service of St Tychon of Amathus. Kept in the Greek, Slavonic and Antiochian enumerations of the day; in the Russian books they close the list of the day's commemorations. Their memory is also naturally joined to that of St John Chrysostom (November 13; January 27, translation of the relics), whose cause they suffered for.
Hymns
Apolytikion — Tone 4 (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.
Iconography
The pair are painted according to their orders: Tigrius as a presbyter — in sticharion and phelonion with the epitrachelion, holding a cross or a Gospel book, beardless or lightly bearded in accordance with the tradition of his condition — and Eutropius as a young reader, in the short tunic of a cleric of the lesser orders, sometimes with the book of readings, and holding the martyr's cross. Where a narrative scene is given, it is the torture-frame with the iron claws, or the burial of Eutropius by night with the singing heard above it. In the Russian engraved menologia they stand together at the end of the June 16 plate. No pre-1900 image of them has been located for this collection, and the Menologion of Basil II, which would be the first resort, covers only September to February.
Disputed questions
- The date of death. The tortures belong to the summer of 404, immediately after Chrysostom's exile and the fire. Eutropius died then or very shortly after; Tigrius died at an unrecorded date in Mesopotamian exile, so that a single year cannot be given for both. The calendars conventionally enter them together as "c. 404".
- The arson. Whether the fire was set by Johannites, by their enemies, or by accident was disputed at the time and cannot be settled now. The church historians treat the charge as a pretext for a persecution already decided upon; nothing in the record convicts these two of it, and their refusal under torture to accuse anyone is the point on which the tradition rests their sanctity.
- Tigrius's condition. The description of Tigrius as a eunuch and former slave is transmitted in the fifth-century histories and is not a later embellishment; it is recorded here because it belongs to the historical texture of the case, the prosecution having made much of the standing of Chrysostom's clergy.
- Not to be confused with the several other Eutropii of the calendar — among them the companion of Cosmas and Damian of Arabia (October 17) and Eutropius of Amasea (March 3) — nor Tigrius with the river of his exile.