Troadius of Neocaesarea
The Holy Martyr Troadius of Neocaesarea
Martyr · d. c. 250, at Neocaesarea in Pontus
Commemorated 2 March — Martyrdom under Decius; his passion seen in a vision by Gregory the Wonderworker
Troadius (†c. 250) was a young martyr of Neocaesarea in Pontus who suffered under the emperor Decius, enduring fearful tortures for the confession of Christ. His memory is bound to that of his great fellow-townsman Gregory the Wonderworker, bishop of Neocaesarea, who — the tradition holds — was granted to see the young man's whole passion in a vision, beholding his torments and the departure of his soul to Christ even as they were happening, and afterward bore witness to his martyrdom. Troadius is commemorated on March 2.
Troadius belonged to Neocaesarea in Pontus, the city on the Lycus that was the see of Gregory the Wonderworker, and he suffered in the persecution of Decius (249–251) — the first empire-wide, edict -driven persecution, in which every subject was required to sacrifice to the gods and to produce a certificate of having done so, and in which many who refused were seized and put to death. Troadius, a young man, refused to sacrifice and confessed himself a Christian; he was arrested and subjected to grievous tortures, which he bore steadfastly, and at the last gave up his life for Christ, winning the martyr's crown in the flower of his youth.
What has fixed his memory in the calendar is not a long biography — little more than the bare fact of his passion is transmitted — but the vision associated with it. The tradition, resting on the memory of the church of Neocaesarea and its wonderworking bishop, holds that Gregory the Wonderworker, at prayer, was granted to behold Troadius's martyrdom in spirit: he saw the young man in his sufferings, present to the scene though bodily absent, and saw his soul at the last released from the body and borne up to God. Gregory thus stood as an eyewitness-in-the-Spirit to the martyrdom, and it is through his witness that the church preserved the memory of Troadius. The episode belongs to the wider cycle of marvels attached to Gregory — the bishop whose prayers, Gregory of Nyssa records, moved mountains and turned rivers, and whose pastoral care extended even to a vision of one of his own flock crowned in martyrdom.
Feast and commemoration
Troadius is kept on March 2 (church date; Old Calendar civil March 15), together with the hieromartyr Theodotus of Cyrenia and the other martyrs of the day. March 2 falls within Great Lent; the commemoration is observed with the Lenten office and the Triodion, and — the weekdays of the Fast having no full Liturgy — no proper Epistle and Gospel are appointed. The saint's Greek name, Τρωάδιος, appears in the synaxaria sometimes alone and sometimes as "Troadius and those with him" (καὶ οἱ σὺν αὐτῷ), associating unnamed companions with his passion.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4
Thy Martyr Troadius, O Lord, in his contest has received from Thee, our God, the crown of incorruption; for, having Thy strength, he cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. By his prayers, O Christ God, save our souls.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
No early identity-verified image of Troadius is known to this collection. He is fittingly depicted as a beardless youth in the martyr's tunic and chlamys, bearing the cross of confession; a narrative treatment would show his torture, and — the detail proper to his memory — Gregory the Wonderworker at prayer, beholding the martyrdom in a vision. The absence of a stored image is noted; the entry is written without an icon: block.