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St. torment. Leontius and with him Hypatia and Theodula Leonty, a Greek by birth, commander of the army in Tripoli (Phoenicia), lived in the 1st century. according to R. X. Professing the Christian faith, he tried to turn the people away from idolatry; Many people obeyed his influence, since everyone respected him, “strong, strong, brave in battle,” who was also famous for his learning and compassion for the poor. At this time (under Emperor Vespasian), when Christians were being persecuted, among other things, because they were considered to be a Jewish sect, not distinguishing them from the Jews who rebelled against the Romans, a dignitary Hadrian was sent from Rome to the Phoenician region, who willingly accepted the task of persecuting Christians, whom he hated, and was generally a man of a cruel disposition. Arriving in Phenicia, Adrian received a denunciation that the military leader Leontius was in Tripoli, seducing the people into the Christian faith. Adrian immediately sent his tribune Hypatius with several soldiers to take such a malicious figure into custody - On the way, Hypatius suddenly fell ill and was forced to stop; his illness intensified so much that death seemed inevitable. “The gods are punishing me because before leaving on the journey I did not make a sacrifice to them...” Hypatius explained the suffering that had befallen him in this way, realizing the dependence of human destiny on some higher power unknown to him, which was personified for him in the pagan gods... Seeking the salvation of the human soul, its Creator responded to this consciousness of Hypatius of his dependence on a higher power and deigned to reveal himself to him as the true God. In a night vision, the Angel of God appeared to Hypatius and said to him: “if you want to be healthy, then call on God Leontiev for help.” ... - How can I call on God Leontiev for help when I was sent to take into custody Leontius, the enemy of our gods? - Hypatius was perplexed, waking up and reporting his vision to the soldiers who were with him. - Why not do this? - the soldiers responded; - We will all ask God Leontiev together: if only you can get well... - And then they exclaimed three times in one voice: - God Leontiev, help us! The patient immediately felt the return of strength and health... All this made a strong impression on one of the young warriors who were with the tribune, Theodulus. He began to carefully question Hypatius about his vision; a desire for the unknown God who works miracles penetrated into his heart. And while the other soldiers, delighted by the recovery of their leader, indulged in a cheerful feast, Theodulus, not taking part in the general entertainment, went deep into thought - how can he find out who and where this God Leontiev is? Leontiy. Hypatius agreed, and when they approached the city, they saw Leontius himself coming to meet them. They asked him where the military leader Leontius lived here and told him about themselves, why they were sent to Tripoli. “Come to my house to rest,” Leonty suggested to them, “and after that I will show you Leonty, the Christian you are looking for.” Having treated those who came to his house with all possible cordiality, Leonty then announced to them: “I myself am the Leonty you are looking for.” I am a warrior of Jesus Christ, and you must take me into custody. Struck by the incomprehensible Christian generosity of a man who so readily betrayed himself, Hypatius and Theodulus threw themselves at his feet and, telling him about the vision and healing of Hypatius, in the name of God Leontiev, begged him to teach them to become Christians. Leonty listened to their story with joyful tears and hastened to fulfill their desire, and at the time when he approached God with prayer for them, it began to rain - as if in exchange for the cleansing water of baptism - while Leonty called on the new converts the name of the Holy Trinity - the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Meanwhile, the rest of the soldiers sent with the tribune arrived in the city; they were indignant when they learned about the conversion of Hypatius and Theodulus to the Christian faith, and besides them there were many dissatisfied in the city about this; Their cries were heard everywhere: “Let those who dishonor our gods be burned!” Others sided with the Christians. Thus, two days later, Hadrian himself arrived and found the city in turmoil. The pagans hastened to inform him against Leontius: “this man,” they complained, “turns the people away from the gods, glorifies and honors as a god some Jesus, whom the Jews beat with contempt, and Pilate crucified on the cross. He led the soldiers you sent into his deception, and they, following his example, now also glorify the crucified Christ and blaspheme our gods." Adrian immediately ordered Leontius and his converts Hypatius and Theodulus to be taken away and imprisoned. Here, in prayer and preparing each other for martyrdom, they spent their last night on earth. The next day they were brought to trial; Leonty answered all of Adrian’s questions with a firm confession of his faith, for which he was subjected to severe beatings and again taken to prison. Turning to Hypatius and Theodulus, Adrian tried to influence them first with brilliant promises, then he began to threaten with cruel torture if they did not renounce their new faith, but having clearly seen the true God in His beneficial miracle, having gratefully loved the “God of Leontyev,” Hypatius and Theodulus did not renounce Him even in the midst of cruel suffering, when their bodies were planed with sharp iron tools. After that they were condemned to death, and with Divine delight they bowed their heads under the sword... After this, Leonty was called again. And he was promised honors and wealth for renouncing Christ. “It’s better for you to turn to Christ yourself,” the confessor answered Adrian, “and you will receive true honor, and wealth, and salvation.” -What kind of salvation are you talking about? - the pagan laughed, - isn’t it about what Theodulus and Hypatius received, who were executed... – Their execution is not destruction, but eternal life, blessed with God and with His saints... The martyr Leonty remained invincible in spirit and amidst torture. “If you cover my whole body with wounds,” he said to the tormentor, “then you will not defeat my mind, you will not be master over my soul.” The patience of the martyr was not overcome by the cruelty of the tormentor and multiplied the methods of torture; Finally, it was ordered that Leonty be hanged head down and flogged with a sharp iron. - God! I rely on You... Strengthen me! – Leonty just prayed... In the evening he was again thrown into prison. Here the martyr was consoled by the vision of an angel, who encouraged him with the promise of being constantly with him. Delighted with inexpressible joy, strengthened from above, Leonty found the strength to endure new tortures, to which he was handed over the next day, again demanding that he renounce Christ. He unshakably confessed his faith and love for the crucified God to the end and died under the blows of the executioners... This was in the year 73 A.D. Christians buried the torment. Leontiya near the city. His suffering and death were described by eyewitness Cyrus Komentarisius (prison commander). He wrote “these memories” on tin boards and placed them at the tomb of the martyr. In Tripoli Phoenician the church of St. Leontius, also in Damascus under the emperor Justinian (527–565). In the desert of Jerusalem there was a monastery in his name. His memory was solemnly celebrated in Constantinople. Rev. Leonty the youth, canonarchist of Pechersk, who lived in the ΧΙV table. and resting in the distant caves of the Kyiv Lavra. Rev. Leonty the perspicacious of Athos, who labored in the monastery of St. Dionysius. During his 60-year stay in the monastery, he entered it only once and left it once - when he was carried out after his death, on June 18, 1605. Through the holiness of his life he achieved the gift of clairvoyance. Feast of the Bogolyubskaya (God-loving) Icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary In 1155, Andrei Georgievich Bogolyubsky, moving from his inheritance - Vyshgorod to his native region of Suzdal, took from there the miraculous icon that was in the nunnery, now called Vladimir, brought to him as a gift from Constantinople and repeated signs from it disposed him to special veneration of it. The entire journey continued unhindered, but about 10 miles from Vladimir, downstream of the Klyazma River, the horses carrying the icon case with the miraculous icon stopped and did not go any further; They changed them, thinking that they were standing there from fatigue, but even the new ones could not move. Then Andrei ordered a prayer service to be performed in front of the icon of the Mother of God, and he himself, falling to the ground with tears, prayed to the Most Holy One. Virgin and made a vow on this very place to erect a church in Her name. The next night, June 18, when the prince continued his fervent prayer, in a dream he was granted a vision: During his prayer, the Mother of God appeared to him with a scroll in her right hand and commanded him to place her image, which he took from Vyshgorod, in Vladimir, and on the site of the miraculous event and vision to build a church in the name of the Nativity and a monastery at the church. The pious prince immediately founded the church and, calling on skilled icon painters, ordered them to depict the Mother of God in the form of prayer as She appeared to him, and She is depicted in excellent Greek writing in full length with a charter in her right hand, her left turned to the Savior. When the church was ready and consecrated, the prince in 1157 established in memory of the miraculous appearance of the Mother of God to celebrate an annual holiday on June 18, brought into the church both icons, the one brought from Vyshgorod, now known under the name of Vladimir, and the newly painted one, which he called the icon of the Mother of God, the God-loving, the place where the Mother of God appeared to him, the God-loving, and he himself began to be called God-loving or Bogolyubsky. Then, near the newly created church and monastery, he founded the city of Bogolyubov. In 1771, on June 8, a new festival was established in honor of the miraculous icon of the Mother of God of Bogolyubsk, in memory of the miraculous deliverance of Vladimir and its environs from the pestilence that befell Russia. When the plague was raging in Vladimir, the inhabitants of the city, as a result of the phenomena that occurred at that time to some of the pious Christians, asked permission to bring the miraculous icon of the Mother of God from the Bogolyubov Monastery. Eyewitnesses testify that there was no pestilence either in the Bogolyubovo monastery or in the village adjacent to it. In the city itself, through the intercession of the Mother of God, the disease stopped that same year. In memory of this miraculous power from the Bogolyubskaya Icon of the Mother of God, a religious procession was established, during which St. the icon from the Bogolyubov Monastery is transferred to Vladimir on May 21, and from there on June 16 it returns to the monastery. In 1820, due to the zeal of the Vladimir citizens, the Bogolyubskaya icon was covered with a gilded silver chasuble.