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St. Muchch. Terentius, Africanus, Maximus, Pompey, Zenon, Alexander, Theodore, Macarius and others with them The Legend of St. much Terentia and his squad (among 40 people) and those who suffered during the persecution from Decius, in the 3rd century, are very ancient. There is an assumption that it was received in the Greek Church in the IV century. together with the relics of Terentius and Africanus, transferred on September 22, under Emperor Theodosius the Great, to the church of St. Euphemia, in Petra - in the northern part of Constantinople. Theodore the reader speaks about this transfer 89. According to the above-mentioned legend, it is known that forty Christians: Terentius, Africanus, Maximus, Pompey, Zenon, Alexander, Theodore, Macarius and others, whose names have not survived to our time, suffered in Africa for the confession of Jesus Christ and their resistance to offer sacrifices to idols, to which they were forced by the ruler of the African province Fortunatus - on the basis of the decree of Dekiev. Having publicly announced the emperor’s decree, Fortunatus also deployed instruments of execution to intimidate Christians and thereby actually influenced the weakest of them... but met unyielding resistance in Terentius and his squad, “who were not afraid of killing the body, but could not kill the soul.” “You all seem to be mature and reasonable people,” Fortunatus tried to convince them, “how can you call a man whom the Jews crucified as a villain King and God?” “If you knew the power of Christ crucified,” Terenty answered him for everyone who was with him, “then you would renounce your delusion and yourself would begin to serve Him, because He is the merciful and merciful Son of God.” By the grace of God His Father He descended to earth and, uniting His Divinity with humanity, voluntarily suffered death on the cross for our salvation... - “You better bow to the gods! - insisted the inveterate pagan, - otherwise you will all perish in cruel torment." “You are in vain to think of intimidating us,” objected Terenty, “we have already told you that we are Christians. It would be madness to be afraid of death, through which a blessed, endless life is revealed to Christians... We have placed our hope in Christ and are not afraid of torment, because we believe that we will remain victorious." Seeing the firmness of the confessors, Fortunatus handed them over to cruel and varied tortures, but God miraculously supported the martyrs, and no torment defeated their patience. They endured hunger in prison, the whittling of their bodies with sharp instruments, and emerged unharmed from the place where they were locked up along with snakes and other poisonous reptiles. Finally, those sentenced to death joyfully accepted their execution, glorifying and praising the Lord until the last minute... Their bodies were reverently buried by Christians. The glory of these martyrs was great. Celebrations in their honor began in ancient times. St. Joseph in the service speaks of the miracles that flowed from St. their relics. The prophetess Huldama lived in the first half of the 7th century. BC She predicted to the 16th king of Judah, who reigned in Jerusalem - Josiah, “who did that which was right in the sight of the Lord and walked in all the way of David his father, who turned neither to the right nor to the left,” that for his humility before the Lord, “the Lord will add him to his fathers, and he will be laid in his tomb in peace, and his eyes will not see all the disaster that the Lord will bring it upon his country" ... (2 Kings 22:20; 2 Chronicles 34:28). St. 600 prep. father, beaten by the Persians in the David-Gareji desert In the monastery founded by St. David of Gareji (one of the disciples of the great John of Zedazni), around which even during the life of St. David, several monasteries were formed, constituting, as it were, the Thebaid of Georgia, which flourished almost until the 17th century; monks used to gather in one of the monasteries on the church holiday of the Resurrection of Christ to jointly celebrate Bright Day. This was the case in 1615. During this unfortunate time for Iberia, when the beast-like Shah Abbas ravaged the entire country and massacred many inhabitants, he went one day, precisely on the eve of Easter Sunday, to hunt in the Karayag steppes, rejoicing and extolling that here he would surely never meet a single living soul. But, to his surprise, lying in his tent at night, he saw many moving lights on the mountain in the distance. These were the monks of the Gareji desert, walking around their small church in a procession of the cross, chanting the joyful “Christ is Risen!” – So not all of Georgia has been put to the sword? - the Shah exclaimed, having learned from his entourage that it was the monks who were celebrating their Easter, and ordered to cut down everyone who was found in this steppe desert... In vain, some of the Shah’s entourage asked him to spare these harmless people, reminding him that Mohammed himself ordered the prayer books to be spared. The soldiers had to fulfill the will of their ruler, who was unbridled in his ferocity, and by the morning of the next day they destroyed up to 600 monks whom they found taking communion during the liturgy of St. The Mysteries of the Lord... Then they destroyed and devastated all the monasteries. And thus ended the existence of these monasteries, which served for almost 12 centuries as a breeding ground for Orthodoxy and piety in Georgia. Subsequently, through the care of the Kakheti king Archil II, the bones of the venerable martyrs were collected and placed in the church he built. Currently, out of the previous twelve, only two restored monasteries exist: Resurrection - St. David and John the Baptist. These martyrs are commemorated in Georgia on Easter Tuesday. (See “Biographies of the Holy Georgian Church” - Sabinin). St. New Martyr Dimos (Dimos) The story of the martyrdom of Dim is a repetition of countless similar ones to which Christians who exist under the yoke of the Turks never cease to be subjected: personal annoyance, vengeful slander, interrogation with false witnesses, of which there is never a shortage - torture, execution... And who knows how long the resumption of cases will continue, where the Turk is the executioner, the victim is a Christian... A different order of things is still only in the dreams of sufferers yearning for liberation from the age-old, unrighteous oppression, and people who sympathize with the suffering of their fellow believers, but unsuccessfully strive to help them shake off this depressing oppression, fruitlessly almost to this day making bloody sacrifices for this. Here in short words is the story of the martyr Dima. A fisherman by trade, who refused to work under the difficult conditions of the owner Turk, who ran a fishing business in Smyrna, he was slandered by Turk, who was annoyed by his refusal, allegedly expressing a desire to convert to Islamism. Behind this, of course, is Dim’s renunciation of such a desire; and confession of the faith in which his parents raised him, in which his common mother, the Orthodox Church, confirmed him. Then – coercion to Islamism, torture; Dim is imprisoned in heavy stocks, in which bricks and other sharp and hard objects are stuffed to intensify the pain. The unwavering patience of a Christian; death penalty... “The beheaded worker was canonized; Christians bought his martyr’s remains and buried him with honor in the Church of St. George. The day after the burial, and on the feast of Trinity, the preacher Dorotheos honored the memory of the sufferer with an edifying word” 90. Dima suffered in 1763 on April 10th. The Lord honored His “faithful” servant with incorruption. His relics were transferred to the altar of the church of St. George, and there were many cases of healing of those who approached his tomb with warm faith in the help of those who received the martyr’s crown. “Complete months of the East” – archim. Sergius, vol. II, part II, p. 102. “Christian martyrs, suffered in the East,” – Priest. P. Solovyov.