Trophimus and Theophilus of Lycia
The Holy Martyrs Trophimus and Theophilus and the Thirteen Martyrs with them, who suffered in Lycia
Martyr · d. c. 305, in Lycia
Commemorated 23 July — Beheading in Lycia under Diocletian
Trophimus, Theophilus and thirteen who suffered with them are a company of martyrs of the Great Persecution under Diocletian, put to death in Lycia on the southern coast of Asia Minor about the year 305. The synaxarion account is short and follows a shape familiar from the Lycian and Pamphylian passions: brought to trial together, they confessed Christ with one voice and refused the sacrifice; their legs were broken and they were thrown into a fire, out of which they came unhurt and praised Christ the louder; and the judge, unable to break them, had them beheaded. They are kept on July 23 by the Slavonic calendars and by the OCA, and are the principal commemoration of that day in Antiochian and Russian usage.
The persecution in Lycia
Lycia — the mountainous coast between Caria and Pamphylia, with its harbours at Myra, Patara and Phaselis — was old Christian country by the beginning of the fourth century, and it suffered heavily in the persecution begun by the edicts of Diocletian in 303. The synaxaria of the summer months are full of its martyrs, and this company belongs among them: fifteen men brought before the tribunal together, of whom only the first two, Trophimus and Theophilus, are remembered by name.
The record preserves nothing of who they were — no city, no trade, no family. What it preserves is the shape of their trial, and that is preserved because it was the point: they were examined as a group, and as a group they answered. Called upon to say what they were, they said that they were Christians; called upon to sacrifice to the gods, they refused. The synaxarion is careful to say that the confession was made boldly and in common, with no one of the fifteen breaking from the rest.
The breaking of the legs and the fire
The tortures that followed are given in the same brief manner. They were beaten and racked; then their legs were broken — the crurifragium, an act of ordinary Roman brutality which in the Gospel is the mercy shown to the thieves on the cross, and which here was meant to leave men unable to stand or flee — and, so maimed, they were thrown into a fire.
The account then reports the miracle on which the whole notice turns: they came out of the fire unharmed, and glorified Christ more loudly than before. It is the pattern of the Three Children in the furnace, and the synaxaria apply it constantly to the martyrs of the Great Persecution; whatever lies behind it in fact, its theological sense in the notice is explicit — the fire that was to silence the confession only amplified it.
Beheading
Having failed with fire, the judge fell back on the sword. The whole company was beheaded, and so, the notice ends, they received their crowns. The Slavonic and OCA calendars date the martyrdom to the reign of Diocletian (284–305) and so to about the year 305; no place within Lycia and no name of a governor is transmitted.
Feast and commemoration
July 23 (church date; Old Calendar civil August 5). In Slavonic and Antiochian usage these martyrs head the day, standing before the hieromartyr Apollinaris of Ravenna and the Pochaev commemoration; the OCA gives them the day's first entry. The Greek books keep July 23 as the day of the hieromartyr Phocas and carry the Lycian martyrs in the synaxaristic tradition rather than in the sung service. No proper hymnography is appointed to them anywhere; the common of martyrs is used.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4
Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their contest received from Thee our God the crowns of incorruption; for having Thy strength they cast down the tyrants, and shattered the feeble boldness of the demons. By their intercessions save our souls.
Original translation from the Greek
Kontakion — Tone 2
Broken in the limbs but unbroken in the soul, ye stood in the fire as in a cool dew, O martyrs of Lycia; and when the flame would not silence you, the sword sent you crowned to the Master. With Trophimus and Theophilus at your head, entreat Him for our souls.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
No individual iconographic type has developed for these martyrs; they are painted, where they are painted at all, as an anonymous company — a rank of young and middle-aged men in tunic and mantle, each holding the small cross of witness, the two named saints set at the front and inscribed. Where a scene of their passion is attempted it takes the furnace: the martyrs standing in the flames with their hands raised, as the Three Children are shown, with the executioners drawing back. No pre-1900 image of them has been identified for this repository, and the Menologion of Basil II, the usual first resort for minor saints of the fixed year, covers only September to February and so cannot supply one.
Disputed questions
- Thirteen or fourteen companions? The OCA heads the notice "Martyr Trophimus and 14 Others in Lycia" while its own text speaks of "Trophimus, Theophilus, and thirteen martyrs with them" — that is, fifteen in all. The Slavonic calendars read "мучеников Трофима, Феофила и с ними 13-ти" — Trophimus, Theophilus and thirteen with them, again fifteen in all. The heading is therefore best understood as counting the fourteen who suffered with Trophimus (Theophilus plus thirteen), not as a rival tradition of sixteen. This entry follows the body of the notice: fifteen martyrs, of whom two are named.
- Not to be confused with the other companies of Trophimus. Four other entries in this corpus carry the name, and none of them is this company: Trophimus of the Seventy (Apr 15), the companion of Saint Paul; Trophimus and Thalus (Mar 11), martyred at Laodicea about 300; Trophimus and Eucarpion (Mar 18), soldiers of Nicomedia; and Trophimus, Sabbatius and Dorymedon (Sep 19), martyred under Probus at Antioch of Pisidia and Synnada. The name Τρόφιμος was common, and the passions of Asia Minor repeat one another's shapes, which is exactly why the collisions arise.
- The Greek notice of July 21. The received Greek Menaion has, on July 21, "the contest of the holy Theophilus, Justus, Trophimus and Matthew" — a different group with two names in common with this one, and a different day. Whether the two notices descend from one dossier that split in transmission, or record two genuinely distinct companies, cannot be settled from what survives; the calendars keep them apart, and so does this corpus. The July 23 service in the Greek books is sung not to these martyrs but to the hieromartyr Phocas, and the Lycian company appears in the Greek tradition through the Synaxaristes rather than through a proper service.