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St. torment. Agathopoda the deacon and Theodolus the reader. From the clergy of Thessalonica Church; During the persecution of Diocletian, in 303, they were drowned in the sea for confessing their faith. † Venerable Theodora of Thessalonica Thessalonica ascetic Theodora 32 was born on the island of Aegina, from pious parents, zealots of pure faith. She got married and had a daughter. An enemy invasion forced her and her husband to move to Thessaloniki. Here she gave her daughter to a monastery; and then, after the death of her husband, she herself accepted monasticism in the monastery where her daughter lived. The corruption of our soul is so great that the counterweight that remains for us to fight it, the counterweight of reason and conscience, is not strong enough to protect us from the most evil deeds. What should we do with ourselves? Pray and pray that the grace of God will revive and strengthen us who are sick. This is what the blessed one did. Theodora. This is why she locked herself in the monastery, to pray and pray, to pray with a prayer that is not scattered by the world, with an all-soul prayer. And so, strengthened by grace, she, through the works of obedience and humility, fasting and self-denial, prayer and praise, pleased the Lord so much that after her death, which followed in 879, she performed various miracles. When, some time later, the abbess of the monastery died, and the latter’s coffin was placed near the relics of Theodora, blessed Theodora, saluting the abbess of the monastery, moved as if alive and gave place to the deceased abbess. A fragrant and healing ointment flowed from her body, and Theodora was called myrrh-streaming; the ointment healed various diseases. When the Turks (in 1430) took Thessaloniki, they desecrated the relics of St. Great Martyr Demetrius, the same fury of fanaticism “was shown over the relics of the holy and myrrh-streaming Theodora, threw them to the ground and crushed them into pieces” 33. Those who know only animal, bestial life cannot bear to see tangible signs of the victory of the immortal spirit over matter. Pathetic people! “God cannot be mocked: whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. He who sows to his flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life" (Gal. 6:7-8). St. torment. Agathopoda the deacon and Theodolus the reader During the persecution of Christians launched by Diocletian in 303, when many Christians fled from the cities and hid in different places, two pious ministers of the Church in Thessalonica: the elderly deacon Agathopod and the young, beautiful reader Theodulus remained in the city, and prayed day and night for the Church of God. They expected torment without any fear. The torment did not take long to arrive. The Christians who did not hide their faith were taken and imprisoned. The ruler of the city, Favstin, ordered the confessors of Christ to be brought to him. They stood before him with cheerfulness and undauntedly recognized themselves as Christians. Then, to all admonitions and threats from the ruler, they responded only with an unshakable confession of the holy faith. Fearing that their firmness would serve as an encouraging example for other Christians brought to torture, Favstin ordered Agathopods and Theodulus to be taken to prison. Here they were placed along with prisoners imprisoned for various guilts and crimes. At night the martyrs prayed fervently. Listening to their prayer, touched by it, other prisoners ceased to be afraid of death, fell at their feet and expressed repentance for their sins. The people began to gather in prison and listened with surprise and tenderness to the speeches of the righteous. Then it was reported to the governor about them that if these two Christians kept in prison were left alive for a long time, they would have time to take many away from serving the gods... Confessors were again called to the governor and, after many vain threats and admonitions, they were sentenced to death, but for now they were taken to prison. Here their relatives and acquaintances gathered and mourned for them with tears. -What are you crying about? - Theodul asked them. “How can one not cry, seeing you in such trouble and danger...” answered those who loved them. “Why have you stopped crying about your troubles,” Theodul asked them, “and are crying for us when we have better things to come?” Spending this last night in chains in prison, the martyrs, having prayed, fell asleep, and both in their sleep were consoled by a vision that foreshadowed their martyrdom and eternal joy. Encouraged, they thanked the Lord and when the day came, they calmly went to the last test and remained steadfast to the end. Finally, they took them to the sea, tied their hands back and, hanging stones around their necks, drowned them... The sea washed their bodies ashore and the believers buried them. Rev. Mark of Athens by origin, Thracian by desert life in Libya, in present-day Tukra This ascetic lived in the desert for 95 years... With joyful tears, after almost a century, he met the person who first visited him - Abba Serapion, the hermit of Egypt, a disciple of John, from the inner Anthony desert; Having blessed and kissed his guest, who came to him as directed in a dream, Rev. Mark told him about himself: “I was born in Athens and studied various sciences, and also studied philosophy. Then, when my parents died, I abandoned this world, where everything faces death, and gave myself up to the service of the eternal God... Throwing off my clothes, I threw myself on a board into the sea and swam, where the waves brought me by the will of God... I spent the first thirty years here in great need and suffering; I endured hunger, and cold, and nakedness, and most importantly, temptations tormented me... But in subsequent years, my flesh changed... The Lord poured out His grace on me... I saw the appearance of the Kingdom of Heaven... I comprehended in my spirit the bliss of the righteous... Now the limit of my life has come, and the Lord sent you here so that you would bury my body in the earth" ... Having talked with Serapion before evening, asking him some questions about the world, about the state of faith in the world, Elder Mark said to him: “brother, stay awake this night for the sake of my death!” And then, standing in prayer, both elders began to sing the psalms of David. And again, after some silence, Mark turned to his visitor: “brother, today is a great day for me, the greatest of all the days of my life! Today my soul is freed from the sufferings of the flesh, from earthly bonds and goes to rest in the heavenly abode,” and, taking Serapion by the hand, he added: “may my body, this receptacle of illnesses, needs and labors, remain until the general resurrection in this cave, in which I stayed in my temporary life... You, Lord, separate my soul from it, since for Your sake I endured hunger, and thirst, and nakedness, and heat, and frost, and all sorts of hardships... Sleep, my eyes, which did not know sleep during the night prayer! Rest, my legs, which labored in the night standing! With my soul I depart from temporary life and wish for everyone who remains on earth to be saved! Save yourself, fasters, wandering in the mountains and caves for the Lord’s sake! Save yourself, prisoners of Christ, imprisoned, exiled for the sake of righteousness and having no consolation except God alone! Save yourself, monks, working for God day and night! Save yourself, priests of the Lord, intercessors before God for people! Save yourself, lovers of Christ, who welcome strangers as Christ Himself! Save yourself, merciful ones, worthy of pardon! Save yourself, you rich, gracious and rich before God in Godly deeds! Save yourself, you who are impoverished for the Lord’s sake! Save yourself, faithful kings and princes, who practice righteous and merciful judgment! Save yourself, devotees of fasting and hard work, save yourself, you who love each other in the Lord! May the whole earth and all those living on it be saved in love and peace!.. Save yourself, brother Serapion, who labored for Christ’s sake to make the journey to my desert! I adjure you by the Lord Jesus Christ: do not take anything, not even a single hair from my wretched body; do not decorate it with any vestments: let my hair, with which the Lord covered me, serve as my funeral clothing, and you yourself do not stay here." And when the lips of the righteous fell silent, his soul ascended to heaven... Serapion laid the body of St. Mark in the cave and prayed all night. The next day he sang with tears and, blocking the opening of the cave with a stone, came down from the mountain, glorifying the Lord and calling on the saint for help. Returning to his monastery, he told about the Elder Mark the Hermit of God to John and his disciples, and everyone glorified God with reverence. Lecturer Mark died around 400, being 130 years old. Rev. Plato the Confessor from the Studite Monastery Born of pious parents in 735, an orphan from childhood, Plato received a good upbringing in the house of his relatives. Having reached mature age, he distributed to the poor the good fortune he had acquired through labor and abstinence in everything and retired to Mount Olympus in Moisia, on the Phrygian-Bithynian border (now Kashish-dag), to a monastery in Symvolech. Here he labored in strict monasticism, working especially on rewriting books and compiling collections of the writings of St. fathers. After the death of the abbot of the monastery, Theoktista (770) was abbot here. Subsequently, refusing the metropolis of Nicomedia, offered to him by Patriarch Tarasius, he retired into the desert along with his nephews - Theodore the Studite (comm. November 11th), and Joseph, bishop. Thessalonica, and founded a monastery in Sakudion (782). In 788 he was present at the 7th Ecumenical Council. He was imprisoned for denouncing Emperor Constantine VI, who married Theodotia during the life of his first wife. Upon his death, he was released and entered the Studite monastery in Constantinople, where his nephew Theodore the Studite was then abbot, having left Sakudion due to an attack on the country of Saracens. Under Emperor Nikephoros, Plato was again persecuted and expelled (807). He was returned to Constantinople from exile in 811, already quite ill; reposed in 813 Plato's nephew Theodore the Studite honored him with a funeral discourse in which he depicted his high life. It is placed in Acts. St. (Apr. 1.366 and XLVI). In Slav. Min. about him - in life. St. Theodora Studite, November 11th. After two decrees of Diocletian: 1) to destroy Christian churches, burn books and deprive Christians of all civil rights and positions, and 2) to use all measures to induce Christians to renounce and execute the disobedient, a series of terrible tortures and executions of Christians followed in all regions of the Roman Empire. The prisons were overcrowded with prisoners for confessing the faith of Christ, so that there was no longer enough room for real criminals. In Egypt, up to 17,000 Christians died in one month; The church in Nicomedia was burned on the very night of Easter, and up to 20,000 Christians died in it. Even remote deserts ceased to serve as a refuge for them: the pursuers penetrated there and tortured and executed the servants of the Lord alienated from the world. According to the historian Eusebius, an eyewitness, in Thebaid “the persecution was terrible, the number of people dying daily in some cities reached a hundred. The bodies of the executed lay in heaps; the instruments of execution became dull, and there were not enough executioners to carry out death sentences.” But all these sophisticated tortures and cruel executions not only did not frighten the Christians, on the contrary, it seemed that they inflamed their confessional zeal to the extreme limits. They arbitrarily surrendered into the hands of their tormentors and accepted death with rapturous joy. “As soon as we pronounced sentence on some,” the historian writes, “others immediately came running from different directions and professed themselves Christians, not at all embarrassed by the horrors of torture. Maintaining unshakable faith in God, they joyfully, with a smile and complacency accepted the death sentence and offered up songs and thanksgiving to God until their last breath.” What inspired them even more, and at the same time contributed to the spread of the knowledge of the true God among non-believers, were the frequent miraculous manifestations of God’s help to the martyrs. Eusebius witnessed the execution of five martyrs in Tire in Phoenicia. They were brought into the arena, and several angry wild animals were released on them, which they continued to tease with iron rods heated in the fire. The animals rushed with fury at unarmed people - Christians, but suddenly, held by some invisible force, they moved away without touching them... Eusebius mentions a young man standing without shackles - with his arms outstretched in a cross shape: “unshakable and fearless in spirit, he prayed earnestly and did not move, did not shy away from the place where he stood, while bears and panthers, breathing rage and death, they almost touched his body, and only Divine and ineffable power, I don’t know how, closed their mouths, and they immediately went back... The five martyrs, whom the animals spared, were executed with the sword, and their bodies were thrown into the sea 34. The Bollandists praise Nicholas Cabasilas, Archbishop of Thessalonica, St. Theodore, lat. et grec. april. 1, 405–409, append. r. 55–59. Extracts - in Chetye-Minea on April 5. Words of John the Reader in the Narrative of the Turks, ch. 16. At Cabasilas St. Theodora is also called the myrrh-streaming one. The monastery where the relics of St. Theodora, in Franz (2, 42) is called the monastery of St. Theodora Tafel de Thessalonica pag. 120. 121. Eusebius, Prince. VIII, ch. 7.