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The Holy Seven Youths of Ephesus: Maximilian, Constantine, Jamelichus, Martinian, Dionysius and John Young men, warriors, children of eminent citizens of the city of Ephesus. Although they were children of different parents, they had unanimity in the faith and love of Christ. When Emperor Decius arrived in Ephesus, they reported to him that they despised the gods and adhered to the Christian faith. The king demanded them and forced them to make a sacrifice to the gods, and when they refused, to deprive them of the insignia of their military rank; but, taking into account the youth of Christ’s confessors, he gave them time to think and released them. The young men agreed to leave the city before Deviev’s return and settle in a large cave on Mount Ohlon (now Prion) for collective prayers and affirmation of themselves for the feat ahead. The youngest of them, Iamblichus, went to the city to buy bread and find out when the king would arrive. And then one day he brings the news that the king has arrived, ordered to look for them and force them to idolatry the next day. The holy youths ate the bread, and this was already at sunset, and after the meal they talked and consoled each other. While talking, they dozed off and fell asleep in the sleep of death, but their bodies, as if sleeping, lay in the cave incorruptible and unchanging. Decius, having learned about the whereabouts of Christ's confessors, ordered the entrance to the cave to be blocked with stones so that they would die of hunger and thirst; he did not know that the youths had already fallen asleep in the sleep of death. When the cave was blocked, two officials, secret Christians, wrote down the suffering and names of the youths on two tin tablets and placed them in a copper box between the entrance stones, saying: “when the Lord wants to visit His servants before His coming and the cave opens with the bodies of the holy youths, then from this record they will learn about their suffering, because they died as martyrs for Christ in this cave.” More than one hundred and seventy years passed, and the Lord deigned to revive the bodies of the departed for the glory of His name and for the confirmation of the believers. The owner of the mountain decided to make a fence for the sheep and for this purpose ordered stones to be taken from there; the workers dismantled the stones that blocked the entrance to the cave. The holy youths came to life, and thinking that they had slept for one night, they sent Iamblichus into the city to buy bread. This one was amazed at the changes in Ephesus and the public celebration of the cross, but he himself amazed others with the old coin for which he wanted to buy bread, and with his answers to the questions asked of him. The mayor and the bishop sent the message to Emperor Theodosius the Younger, and he personally arrived in Ephesus and bowed to the saints, who, after a contented conversation, fell asleep in eternal sleep in the presence of the king. Their relics rested in a cave back in the 12th century, and the Russian pilgrim, Abbot Daniel, saw them there in 1114. A native of Asia Minor and cubicular (bed attendant - court rank) imp. Maximina. Having taken leave to his estate near Nicomedia, he received St. baptism and built a church in the lower part of his house. One of Eleutherius' servants revealed this to the emperor when visiting the estate, and since the saint did not want to make sacrifices to the gods, he was immediately beheaded (around 310). His relics were transferred from Constantinople to the southern Italian city of Teame in 1303.