Holy Apostles Jason and Sosipater of the Seventy
Saints Jason and Sosipater are numbered among the Seventy Apostles whom the Lord sent out two by two before his face. Saint Jason was born in Tarsus, the home city of the Apostle Paul, and was the first Christian of that city; he is the same Jason who is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles as having received Paul and Silas into his house in Thessalonica, and whose home was attacked by an angry mob. Saint Sosipater was a native of Achaia and is mentioned by Paul in the Epistle to the Romans, where he sends greetings as a kinsman of the apostle. After the labours and martyrdom of Saint Paul, Jason became Bishop of Tarsus and Sosipater Bishop of Iconium. The two travelled together to the western lands and came at last to the island of Corfu, where they preached Christ, founded a church in honour of the Protomartyr Stephen and converted many. Cast into prison by the king of Corfu, they led seven other prisoners to faith in Christ, who afterwards received the crown of martyrdom by being thrown into a cauldron of boiling pitch and resin. The king's daughter, the holy Virgin Kerkyra, was likewise illumined by their preaching, openly confessed Christ before her father and was hung up by the wrists and shot through with arrows. Many further miracles followed and the king and people came to faith. Jason and Sosipater laboured on Corfu to a great age and reposed in peace there.
Holy Martyrs Dada, Maximus and Quinctilian, at Dorostolum
286
Saints Dada, Maximus and Quinctilian were three brothers who lived in the city of Dorostolum in Moesia on the Danube during the reign of the Emperor Diocletian. When the imperial decree was published commanding all to offer sacrifice to the gods at the public festivals on pain of death, the three brothers refused to obey and withdrew secretly into the forest of Ozovia, where they gave themselves to prayer and fasting. Soldiers sent in pursuit found them at prayer and brought them before the proconsul Tarquinius and his colleague Gabinius. Interrogated as to their faith, all three confessed themselves Christians. Tarquinius offered to appoint Maximus as a pagan priest of Zeus, but the saint denounced Zeus as a foul adulterer and called upon the name of Christ alone as the true God. After many torments the proconsul, unable to overcome their constancy, sentenced them to death, and they were led back under guard to the very forest where they had been seized and there beheaded with the sword in the year 286. Their relics worked many miracles, and they are commemorated together by the Church on this day.
Saint Cyril, bishop of Turov
1183
Saint Cyril of Turov was born about the year 1130 in the city of Turov on the river Pripyat, in what is now southern Belarus, the son of wealthy and pious parents. From his early years he gave himself to the study of the sacred Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers, mastering not only Slavonic but also Greek so as to read the holy books in the original. Renouncing his inheritance, he was tonsured a monk in the Saint Boris and Gleb monastery in Turov, where he lived in great asceticism. For a time he withdrew into a pillar, after the manner of the stylites of old, and from there sent forth instructions and writings for the people of God. The fame of his holy life and his learning reached the prince and the people, who chose him as their bishop, and Cyril was consecrated to the see of Turov by the Metropolitan of Kiev. As bishop he combated the Bogomil heresy and other false teachings of his day, and composed many sermons, prayers, treatises and a corpus of letters distinguished for their grace and theological depth. He is sometimes called the Russian Chrysostom on account of the eloquence of his preaching. After some years, drawn by his love of stillness, he resigned his throne and returned to monastic seclusion, devoting his last years to writing. He reposed on 28 April in the year 1183. He is one of the chief lights of the early Russian Church and a master of liturgical homily.
The Nine Martyrs at Cyzicus
3rd c.
These nine holy Martyrs were from various places, but when they refused to offer sacrifice to idols or to deny Christ, all were beheaded together in Cyzicus, a city in Asia Minor on the coast of the Sea of Marmara. Their names were Theognis, Rufus, Antipater, Theostoichus, Artemas, Magnus, Theodotus, Thaumasilas and Philemon. During the reign of the Emperor Constantine a church was built in Cyzicus in their honor, and their incorrupt relics were deposited there.
They are commemorated April 29 on the Slavic calendar.