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St. Reverend Martyr. Eugenia the maiden, her parents Philip and Claudia, the servants Protus and Iakinthos and the maiden Vasilla Eugenia - a Roman, the daughter of noble pagan parents (her father, Philip, was the ruler of the city of Alexandria), was distinguished by a brilliant education and attractive appearance; Her parents hoped to secure her future through a brilliant marriage with one of the many seekers for her hand, the noblest and richest people of the society to which Evgenia belonged. But young Evgenia herself was not carried away by dreams of marriage or any brilliant future. By chance, such a reading fell into her hands, which produced a revolution in her feelings and concepts, and her pagan environment suddenly became alien to her. This reading, namely: the epistles of St. Apostle Paul, transported her soul to a completely different, new and wonderful Christian world. With all her soul she fell in love with the Christ preached by Paul and was filled with a thirst for knowing Him. For this purpose, she looked for cases of rapprochement with the then persecuted Christians, from whom she could hear about Christ and be enlightened by His teaching. Struck by the high meaning of the Christian chants that she happened to listen to one day during her walk in the countryside, Eugenia decided to finally join the society of Christians, and, not hoping to get the permission of her parents to do this, fearing, on the contrary, any obstacle in this regard on their part, she, having convinced two house servants, Protus and Iacinthos, to follow her and dressed in a man’s dress in order to more conveniently hide from searches behind her, disappeared from home and appeared at the monastery, calling himself the brother of the servants accompanying her. They were all accepted and soon received baptism from the Christian bishop Elias, known for the holiness of his life. Having completely devoted herself to monastic asceticism, Evgenia achieved such moral perfection that after the death of the abbot of the monastery she was unanimously elected to his place. God supported her in her extraordinary labors and honored her with the gift of miracles. Healing the sick with prayer, she gained fame; but the glory she achieved could not do without its usual consequences: enmity and slander... Having attracted the attention of one noble woman named Melanthia, whom she healed from an illness, Eugenia was subjected to her vindictiveness because she with horror refused her blasphemous proposal to enter into an illegal alliance with her, and the shameless woman offered to transfer all her wealth to the imaginary monk. - Shut up, woman! - Eugenia responded indignantly to Melanthia’s words, - and know that we did not renounce all worldly blessings in order to be seduced by wealth. Our only connection with people is in love for Christ, and all our wealth is in the knowledge of the truth. Melanfia, ashamed and irritated to the extreme, did not stop at the most shameful slander in order to destroy the holy ascetic, whom she took for a monk, and brought a complaint against him as someone who wanted to seduce her... It was then, in order to save the honor of the monastic rank and the brethren of her monastery, whom the evil woman had also managed to bring to justice, so that she exposed them to the possibility of being tortured upon discovering their confession of the Christian faith, Eugenia decided, for the sake of exposing slander, to reveal her long-standing secret to the ruler of the city, the same Philip, her own father... Brought to him for trial and falsely convicted by bribed witnesses, she addressed him with the following words: “The time has come to break the silence that I have long observed... The time has come to speak freely and reveal the truth in order to discover the lies that have been brought against us. Not for the sake of vanity, but for the sake of the glory of the name of Christ and in order to prevent the triumph of lawlessness over innocence and undeserved reproach over Christians, I must reveal the secret that I wanted to keep until the end of my life... “For many years you have not seen me, my lord, ruler, and you have not recognized me under the guise of a monk as your own daughter... But now you must learn that such is the power of the holy name of Christ, that even weak wives are not inferior in strength to strong men, and there is no other difference between people except the degree of faith... We are all of one spiritual nature in Jesus Christ, before Whom there is no difference between husbands and wives, as testifies Christian teacher Paul... That is why I, having believed in Christ, did not hesitate to serve Him, choosing activity that, although exceeding the strength of a weak female being, hid my path from the attention of those who could prevent me from asceticizing on it... And now, I open myself to you, my father, and to you, my brothers, Sergius and Avit, who are present here... I am Eugenia, your daughter, my father, Philip, who for the sake of love for Christ has renounced all earthly consolations... And here are your servants, and now my brothers – Protus and Jacinth, who also wished to devote themselves to serving the true God.” Evgenia barely had time to express this about herself when her father, recognizing her as she spoke, and recovering from the excitement that gripped him at such an unexpected discovery, fell to her, hugging his daughter with tears of indescribable joy... At that moment he comprehended her Christian perfection and the truth of her chosen path... Who could also measure the joy of Eugenia’s mother, Claudia, when, informed of what had happened, she hurried to see her daughter, whom she had long considered dead... Not only Evgenia’s parents, but also all the people who were present exclaimed enthusiastically: – Great is Christ, the Christian God! He alone is the true God who works miracles! Revealing the hidden, defending the truth, shaming lies! Following this, the ruler Philip with his entire household and many people accepted the faith of Christ. Forced, when the persecutors of Christians learned about this, either to renounce the Christian faith or to be removed from the title of ruler, Philip chose the latter, and was then appointed bishop; but he did not serve Christians for long in the rank of saint: he was killed by order of the new ruler of the city, Terenty. After the death of Philip, his family returned to Rome, where his sons entered the public service, and his widow, Claudia, with her blessed daughter Eugenia settled on her estate outside the city, where they lived in the labors of spreading the faith of Christ. For this, and especially for the conversion of one noble maiden Vasilla to Christ, Evgenia was given over to torture. For a long time, but with unshakable courage, she endured various tortures, and finally was beheaded along with Vasilla on the very day of the Nativity of Christ in 262. – Claudia buried her daughter on her country estate, and she herself died soon after, having been warned in a dream about her death by her daughter, the martyr Eugenia. Together with Eugenia, Protus and Iakinthos, who were with her, were beheaded because they did not want to take part in the sacrifice to the pagans. “Protus and Jacinthus are mentioned in the poems of Pope Damasus. Their tombs were opened by this pope in 366 and a church was built over them soon after. Currently, the relics of Protus rest in Rome, in the Church of St. John the Baptist among the Florentines; the relics of Jacinthos are in the church of St. Ap. Paul, Ostia; the relics of Eugenia are in the Church of the 12 Apostles; the relics of Vasilla are in the church of Praxeda” 357. † Memory of Rev. Nicholas, a former soldier The Reverend Father Nicholas, as the ancient Slavic legend says, 358 was first a warrior and commander of warriors. When imp. Nikifor opened war with the Bulgarians, Nicholas also went “with them.” – The expression of the legend: “go out with them” itself indicates that Nicholas was the head of a special, not Greek, army. since the legend was written by a Slav, it is completely unknown in Greek, and it is natural for a Slav to talk about a Slav: it is clear that blessed Nicholas was a Slav and the head of the Slav squads 359. For the empire this was natural: it usually hired Slavic squads 360 for war; ) especially under Nikofor, when they made an intensified recruitment of troops, they could not do without the Slavic free squads. - So blessed. Nicholas went on a campaign with the Slavic squads. During the hike, he stopped for the night at a hotel. After having dinner with the hotel owner, he went to bed. In the dead of night, the hotel owner’s daughter quietly approaches his bed and, waking him up, entices him with lust and challenges him to fornication. “Stop it, girl, don’t desecrate your virginity,” the governor told her. Ashamed, she walked away from him; but then, after a little time, he approaches him again with the same sinful desire. “He sent her away again. And the third time she comes, inflamed with lust. “Unfortunate! The governor says to her, how do you not understand that by destroying your virginity, you become an object of laughter and contempt for people and you will destroy your soul? Then don't you see that I'm going to battle? How can I defile my body when death is before my eyes? The girl left in shame. When the day came, the governor stood up, prayed to the Lord and went on his way. The next night in a dream he sees himself in some holy place and near him a strong husband, with his right leg lying on his left. “Do you see the troops, one against the other”? asks the unknown person. “Yes, sir, I see the Greeks are gaining the upper hand over the Bulgarians.” “Look here,” says the unknown man, and put his left foot on his right. The righteous governor sees that the Bulgarians have recovered and are mercilessly crushing the Greeks. When the battle ended, the unknown person said: “Look closely at the lying corpses. He looks and sees the entire field covered with corpses; only one place is not occupied by anyone. Then the strong one says to him: “What do you think about this”? “I don’t understand what this means,” said the governor. “This empty place,” he continued, was ready for you; but because last night you defeated the evil lust that rose up against you three times, you are delivered from death. Then you will serve me." - Righteous Nicholas, hearing this, was horrified and, jumping out of bed, began to pray. The war went on exactly as the righteous man saw in his dream. On July 20, 811, the emperor entered Bulgaria and quickly took the Bulgarian cities; Even the palace of Prince Grubosh was taken, and Nikifor ordered to put his seals on the prince’s expensive things, considering them his property. The troops were ordered to mercilessly put to death everyone: elders, children, wives. Rude, not prepared for war, asked for peace once or twice. The Emperor wanted to crush Bulgaria. His army was located in a valley surrounded by mountains. - Grubosh ordered to quickly occupy all the gorges of the mountains and block the exits with strong abatis. In two days his will was fulfilled. July 25 The Bulgarians set fire to the forests on the mountains and at night descended onto the plain in a dense mass. The Greeks had no salvation from anywhere. The army was exterminated, all military commanders fell, the emperor was also killed; his son managed to escape from general extermination, but, wounded, he lived only for a year; carts, weapons, state treasury, and the emperor's treasures became the property of the Bulgarians 361. Righteous Nicholas, seeing the fulfillment of his vision, thanked the Lord for his salvation. Straight from the battle, in tears for his fallen soldiers, he went to the monastery. Having accepted the schema, he served the Lord diligently for several years. His successes in spiritual life were such that he was one of the visionary and great fathers. “Poly, month. East." arch. Sergius, vol. II, part 2, p. 398. The legend is read in the charatean menaion of the Pshinsky monastery of the 14th century. The ancient text of his app. in Izv. acad. VIII, 154–156. The same thing, with a few changes in words, in the oven. prologue and in the fourth quarter on December 23rd. Taking into account the antiquity of the manuscripts where the edifying legend is found, and taking into account the historical circumstances of Bulgaria, we can confidently assume that the legend of the righteous was composed during the reign of Ts. Ash. According to Akropolit, Yasen the Elder “said about himself that he was rewarding the damage caused to Bulgaria by the emperor. Vasily, and just as he was called the destroyer of the Bulgarians, so he is the destroyer of the Greeks.” The son of Yasen the Elder imitated his father, restored the Bulgarian nation, and collected the relics of the holy Slavs in Ternov. Some inaccuracy of the legend about St. Nicolae also indicates that it was written around 1230. Eg. in 711 the emperor hired 3,000 Bulgarians to defend the empire. Chertkov about Svyatoslav’s war, p. 142. Other evidence from Tafel, de Thessalonica p. 513. This is how Theophanes chron describes the war. 329–330. Zonara lib. XV, 98. Kedrin hist. η. (2, 481 s.), Glykas, Manassi (in Chertkov, p. 82), Slavic prologue: “all power was destroyed by murder, and so it was with Tsar Nicephorus. Having allowed God, little has returned from them,” or, as in Chetya-Minea, “Tsar Nicephorus himself with a small retinue was barely able to escape.” But all historians say that Grubosh made a cup from the royal skull; Georgy Amartol adds one remark: “no one could clearly say how the king was killed.” Chronicle, p. 677. In the Greek Menaion under June 23: “memory of the Christians who died in Bulgaria under Tsar Nicephorus.” To Serb. Synaxar 1340, on June 23, there is such a legend: under Nikifor, the kings, Father Starozhnov (Stavrakia), in the ninth year of his kingdom, met the army of the Greek Bulgarians; I conquered the abi of the Tsar in the dust and therefore I was victorious and took food and drink diligently at the Eels of Blgar and at night attacked the Grchskaya howl, but the Tsar himself killed everything and howl, not being strict, having committed a lot of murder in them, not sparing not a single one, not that same king. No matter where the tongues came from, Abi did not cease from life, running up into the dense mountains from the overflow: and as soon as they were alive, they did not want Christ to be revealed, behold, they ran away from the godless into various and evil deaths and received a crown of torment.” Glasvik XVI, 39. 40. Zap. acad. VI, 109. According to this Greek legend, the Bulgarians forced the captives to renounce their faith, and many of the Greeks managed to escape in the forests and mountains, while the king, his entire retinue, and a huge number of troops died.