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Holy Hieromartyr Artemon, Presbyter of Laodicea Artemon was sixteen years old as a reader, 28 as a deacon, and 33 as a priest in Laodicea of Syria (now Latakia). During the Diocletian persecution he was martyred in Caesarea in Palestine and beheaded in 303. †Holy Martyr Thomaida Abba Daniel, who lived for 40 years in a hostel, then from 420 lived as a hermit in the Skete desert 162, came with his disciple to Alexandria, and the following happened with them: the son of the monk Octo decadian had a young wife, Thomaida. The father, visiting his son, was inflamed with lust for his daughter-in-law, hugging and kissing her; she accepted these caresses in the simplicity of a pure soul as an expression of parental love. One night, fellow fishermen called their fisherman son to go fishing. The father began to pester his daughter-in-law with an obvious sinful demand. “What's wrong with you, father? Protect yourself with the sign of the Lord’s cross and go away,” said Thomaida. He, inflamed with lust, did not leave, but pestered. Thomaida resisted firmly. There was a sword hanging over his son's bed. Grabbing the sword, the father began to threaten Thomaida that he would kill her if she did not listen to him. Thomaida answered firmly: “even if they cut me into pieces, I will never agree to lawlessness.” Inflamed with anger, the unfortunate criminal struck Thomaida with a sword and killed him. Other fishermen come to call their son and see the murder. The father tells them: “Take me to the prince, I am a murderer.” Abba Daniel, having learned about this, tells the disciple: “It is necessary to bury the body of the sufferer with honor.” He goes to the Octodekad Monastery of Alexandria; he was met by the abbot and the brethren. The elder said to the monks: Thomaida’s body should be laid to rest only with the fathers. Others responded with a murmur: “he orders that the body of the wife be laid down with the fathers.” The elder said: “This girl is the amma (mother) of me and you, she died for purity.” Then no one objected to the elder anymore, and she was buried with her fathers. At one time, a prodigal war against his brother arose in the monastery, and he announced this to Abba Daniel. “Go,” the elder told him, to the Octodecad monastery, to the tomb of the fathers and pray there like this: “God, for the sake of the prayers of Saint Thomaida, help me.” The brother did as the elder ordered, and, returning from the Octodekad monastery, fell at the feet of the elder. “God, through your prayers, delivered me from prodigal warfare,” said the brother. “That’s not what you’re saying; tell me how you freed yourself?” said the old man. The brother answered: “I made only 12 bows and, leaning over the tomb, fell asleep. A young woman comes and says to me: “Accept this blessing and go in peace to your cell.” And I felt that the scolding had stopped. But I don’t understand what that blessing means.” The elder said: “The blessing is the gift of the martyr of chastity; Ascetics of purity have such boldness before God” 163. The Russian admirer of shrines, monk Zosima, wrote about Constantinople in 1420: “the women’s monastery where the martyrs Kozma and Damian lie, and there lies the blessed Thomaida, who was flogged by her father-in-law... And God will give her healing to whom carnal warfare comes. And they come and worship her tomb, and the battle goes away with her prayers” 164. Fidelity to the duty of marriage is rewarded by the Lord in this life. “We came to Ascalon,” writes Blessed John Moschus, and Abba Eugene, the presbyter, told us: one merchant from our city, having gone to sea, lost his own and someone else’s; I only saved myself. When he arrived here, he was taken by his creditors, put in prison and stripped of everything that he had in the house, so that he had nothing left except what he and his wife wore. His wife, from severe grief and care, could barely feed her husband bread. One day, when she was sitting and eating with her husband in prison, some important person came to give alms to the prisoners and, seeing his wife sitting with her husband, he was stung by his love for her (she was very pretty) and told her through the prison guard to come to him. She went willingly, thinking of receiving alms. Taking her to the side, the man asked her: “Who are you and why are you here?” She told him everything. He said to her: “If I pay the debt for you, will you sleep with me this night?” The beautiful and at the same time chaste wife answered him: “I heard, my lord, the words of the Apostle that the wife does not control her body, but the husband; and so allow me, sir, to ask my husband about this; I will do whatever he orders.” She went and told her husband about everything. The prudent husband, out of love for his wife, did not want to free himself from prison by such means; but, sighing heavily, with tears he said to his wife: “Go, sister, refuse this man and say: I told my husband, but he did not agree; God will not abandon us." At the same time, one robber was imprisoned in prison, who heard the entire conversation between the husband and his wife and, sighing, said to himself: “What an extreme they are in and yet they did not want to buy their freedom with money; they preferred chastity to any wealth, they neglected everything in this life! And I, unfortunate one, what am I doing? I never even thought that there was a God, and that’s why I’m guilty of so many atrocities.” Calling them through the window to the place where he was imprisoned, the robber told them: “I was a robber and did a lot of evil, and killed many, and I know that when the boss comes, I will be executed as a murderer. Seeing your chastity, I grieved for you. Go to this place of the city wall, dig up and take the money that you find there, and pray for me so that I will find mercy.” A few days later, the chief who arrived in the city ordered the robber to be taken out and beheaded. A day later, the wife said to her husband: “Let me, my lord, go to the place that the robber told us about, I’ll see if he was telling the truth?” The husband answered: “If you wish, go.” The wife took a furrower, went to that place in the evening and, after digging, found a pot of gold. She acted prudently: she gave the money to the lenders little by little, so that they would think that she was borrowing money from others; I finally paid everyone. So she freed her husband. The one who told us this added: behold, they kept the commandment of God, and the Lord our God magnified His mercy over them 165. Prefabricated Patericon under the banner. I and D. Prologue June 7. In 392, Daniel’s brother John Kolov took the royal teacher, Arseny the Great, under his spiritual control. East. monasticism, part 2, page 130. Prefabricated or hermitage Slavic Paterik under the banner. F. Acta Sanet, ad d. April 14 Memory of St. Thomaida Apr. 13, according to the Roman martyr. April 14. Herod's journey. Zosima, p. 62. St. Petersburg. 1849 About the monastery of St. Kozma and Damian Du-Cange, Const. chr. r. 121, 122.