Urpasian
The Holy Martyr Urpasian of Nicomedia
Martyr · d. c. 300, at Nicomedia
Commemorated 9 March — Martyrdom by fire at Nicomedia under Maximian
Urpasian (†c. 300) was a dignitary of the imperial court at Nicomedia who, in the persecution under the emperor Maximian, renounced his worldly rank to confess Christ. Coming forward before the emperor, he cast off the belt and robe of his office at the ruler's feet and declared himself a Christian, refusing every inducement to sacrifice. For this he was cruelly tortured — hung up and torn, seared with fire — and at last shut within an iron frame and burned alive, his ashes scattered into the sea so that the Christians should keep no relic of him. He is commemorated on March 9, the day of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste.
Urpasian was a man of high station — a senator or dignitary (συγκλητικός) of the court — at Nicomedia, the great eastern capital and, in the years of the Great Persecution, the very theatre of the emperors' war on the Church. When Maximian commanded that the Christians be sought out and forced to sacrifice, and the dignitaries of the court were pressed to give the example of conformity, Urpasian did the opposite: he came into the emperor's presence, stripped off the belt (cingulum) and mantle of his office — the insignia of his rank and of the emperor's service — and threw them down, declaring that he renounced all earthly honour to be a soldier of Christ the King, and that he was a Christian.
The synaxaria describe the tortures that followed with the customary catalogue of the Nicomedian passions: he was seized, suspended, and his body torn with iron hooks or scrapers; burning torches were applied to his flesh; and throughout he was commanded to renounce Christ and sacrifice to the gods, and throughout he refused, answering that the honours he had cast off were nothing beside the kingdom he sought. When the torments could not move him, he was condemned to the fire: enclosed within an iron cage or frame set over the flames, he was burned alive, and gave up his soul in the fire. That the Christians might not gather even his ashes for veneration, his remains were cast into the sea. The tradition places his martyrdom at Nicomedia in the reign of Maximian, about the turn of the fourth century.
Feast and commemoration
Urpasian is commemorated on March 9 (church date; Old Calendar civil March 22), within Great Lent, one of the lesser commemorations of a day led by the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste. His memory is kept from the early synaxaria, though the day's office belongs to the Forty and no proper hymnody of Urpasian is appointed; the common of a martyr is used where one is wanted.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4
Thy Martyr, O Lord, in his contest received the crown of incorruption from Thee our God; for possessing Thy strength, he cast down the tyrants and shattered the strengthless insolence of the demons. By his intercessions, O Christ God, save our souls.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Urpasian is depicted as a martyr of the court — a man in the tunic and chlamys of a Byzantine official, bearing the martyr's cross — or, in narrative images, at the moment of his death within the iron frame amid the flames. No pre-modern icon proper to him has been identified for storage here; the entry is noted for a future icon search.
Disputed questions
- The date and the persecutor. The synaxaria set the martyrdom "under Maximian" at Nicomedia; the reign is given variously, some placing it about 295, the OCA synaxarion assigning it to Maximian Galerius (305–311) — that is, to the Great Persecution. The city and the manner (the iron frame, the ashes cast into the sea) are constant; the entry keeps the range rather than resolving it.