Страдание святого мученика Каллиопия

In Pamphylian Perga in 2455 there lived a pious and God-fearing woman, Theoklia; both she and her family were imbued with the fear of God; Leading a virtuous life, Theoklia gave generous alms. Being married to an honorable man who came from a senatorial and patrician family 2456, Theoklia did not give birth to children for many years. Having diligently asked God for permission for her infertility, she, a long time after getting married, conceived. At this time, her husband died, leaving her the heiress of a huge fortune. Having given birth to a son, she named him Calliopius 2457. Teaching him the sciences, Theoklia mainly tried to instill in him the fear of God and teach him the wisdom of Divine Scripture. In those days, the service of idols was very widespread, the truth was hidden by lies and most people worshiped and made sacrifices to bad idols. Constant companions in the life of St. Calliopia was prayer and fasting. When the judge was informed about the holy young man that he was a Christian, his mother, Blessed Theoklia, having provided her son with enough money, clothing, and also sending some servants with him, sent him by ship to another country in order to avoid unjust condemnation. Thus, blessed Calliopius sailed to Pompeopel of Cilicia 2458. Seeing here that the wicked leader Maxim was organizing sacrifices, singing and dancing in honor of the bad idols, the holy young man was surprised and asked someone: “What is the reason for your such rejoicing?” “Today is a holiday in honor of our gods,” they answered him, “come and join us in our feast.” “I am a Christian,” said the saint, “and I spend holidays in fasting in honor of my Christ, and it is indecent for the lips that glorify Christ to accept the desecrated sacrifices of wicked gods.” These words of the saint reached the ears of the military commander Maxim, and the latter, burning with anger, ordered the holy young man to be seized and brought before him for interrogation. - What is your name? - asked the military leader St. Calliopia when he was brought to trial. “I am a Christian,” answered the saint, “and my name is Calliopius.” “Now, when the whole universe,” said the military leader, “is organizing a feast on the occasion of the holiday of the gods, why are you alone, not wanting to share the holiday with us, and are you in some kind of delusion?” “Here you are,” answered Saint Calliopius, “and you are the very ones who walk in darkness and deception, since you have abandoned the living God, the creator of heaven and earth, who created everything with His word, and worship the work of human hands—unfeeling wood and cracked stone.” “Your youth makes you impudent,” the military leader objected, “exposing you yourself to the danger of experiencing considerable torment!” Tell us, what country are you from and whose family? “I am from Pamphilia Perga,” answered the saint, “of a senatorial and patrician family, but most of all and most honorable for me is that I am a Christian.” – Do you have parents? – asked the military leader. “Yes, I have a mother,” answered the saint, “but my father died long ago.” “I swear by the great sun and all the deities,” answered the military leader, “that if you worship the gods, then I will marry you the only daughter I have.” “If I wanted to get married,” answered the saint, “I could take your daughter for myself and bring her into the possession of my mother.” But know that I promised my God Christ, who created me in His image, to keep this mortal body in pure virginity and present it blameless before His righteous judgment. Do as you please, but I am a Christian. “You nasty and evil one,” shouted the military leader, “are you probably thinking with these speeches to arouse rage in me so that I will quickly kill you?” So know that I will torment you for a long time, crushing your body into pieces, and the rest of it will be put on fire to be burned. “The longer my torment,” answered the saint, “the brighter the crown that Christ will weave for me for my suffering.” After all, Scripture says that no one will be crowned unless he is martyred according to the law (2 Tim. 2:5). “Lay him out,” the military leader addressed the executioners, “and break all his bones with tin rods!” During the beating, Saint Calliopius said: “I thank You, Christ, that You have vouchsafed me to endure torment for the sake of glorifying Your name.” “Make a sacrifice to the gods,” the military leader continued, “so that you can see your fatherland and not be deprived of your property.” See how cruelly they torture you! “I contemplate the sweetness of the future peace promised to me by Christ and do not feel torment,” said the saint. – And although I am currently in a foreign country, I nevertheless know that “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness of it” (Ps. 23:1). And here I see my mother and my fatherland. My mother is the Orthodox Church of Christ, and my fatherland is heavenly Jerusalem, according to the apostolic word. “Our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3:20). If you remind me of my carnal mother, then there is a Divine voice affirming: “Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:37). I do not value the abundance of riches at all and consider it better to suffer with Christ crucified than to have the short-term satisfaction of a crazy world with sin. “Since he is already laid,” the military leader said to the servants, “then turn him around and hit him on the stomach with raw veins, saying: wicked man, do not answer this or that, but to the question!” - Deprived of heavenly blessings and more ferocious than a beast, a madman! - said the holy martyr to the military commander. “I tell you the words of truth, and you, having blinded spiritual eyes and closed ears so as not to hear the words of the Lord, unjustly subject me to torture, killing me like a robber!” “Place,” the military leader then ordered the executioners, “a tormenting wheel with sharp irons and light a strong fire under it, and stretch Calliopius tightly, even to the point of breaking the joints, on the wheel, tie him in this form to the wheel and turn him so that he dies, cut by the iron and set on fire by the fire.” When they began to torture the holy young man in this way, he, in grave suffering, cried out to the Lord, saying: “Come, my Christ, to the aid of Your servant, so that before the end Your holy name may be glorified through me, and so that everyone may know that those who trust in You will not be put to shame forever.” And then the Angel of the Lord immediately appeared, extinguished the fire, stopped the wheel and made it motionless, and the executioners could not turn it. The young body of the martyr was bleeding on the wheel and bones were visible through the deep wounds, since the wheel had double-edged, saw-toothed swords on it. The commander ordered the martyr to be untied and removed from the wheel. The spectacle of suffering touched everyone who watched, and the people cried out, saying: “O unjust judge! And what a young man dies cruelly!” “Didn’t I tell you,” said the military leader to the saint, “that your youth makes you impudent, subjecting you to cruel torment through this?” “Shameless dog,” answered the saint, “do you really think that I was afraid of your torment?” “You, damned one,” remarked the military leader, “you insult me ​​so that I would quickly destroy you, but that will not happen!” So, come and make a sacrifice to the gods to avoid even more cruel torment! “I trust,” answered the holy martyr, “in my Christ, and you are not able to desecrate the confession of God in me.” My body is given to you: torture it as you wish, you will receive vengeance from God for this on the Day of the Last Judgment, “for... with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Matthew 7:2). “Having chained him with iron chains,” the military commander ordered the executioners regarding Saint Calliopius, “guard him in the inner prison, do not have any care about him and do not allow any of the Christians close to him to enter him, lest someone praise him for his patience.” The executioners immediately shackled the holy sufferer and threw him into the inner prison. Blessed Theoklia, having learned about such suffering for Christ of her only begotten son, Saint Calliopius, wrote a will regarding her house and all her property: she freed her male and female slaves, numbering two hundred and fifty people, and distributed to the poor all the gold and silver and precious clothing that she had. She gave all the rest of her property and real estate, villages, fields, vineyards to the Holy Church and, leaving her fatherland, went to Cilicia to her son who was suffering for Christ. Having paid the money to the prison guards, she entered the inner prison and, seeing her son, fell down, bowed to him and wiped the pus of his scabs. Saint Calliopius, being all bound with iron and swollen from countless wounds, could not stand before his mother, and only said: “I did well that you came, my mother and witness of my suffering for Christ!” Theoklia, seeing her son’s body torn by wounds, spoke to him: “Blessed and blessed is the fruit of my womb, because I presented you as Samuel’s Anna as a sanctified vessel for God, and as Isaac’s Sarah presented you to Christ as an acceptable sacrifice!” All that night the mother stayed in prison, sitting at her son’s feet, singing and praising God with him. At midnight, a bright light shone in the dungeon and a voice was heard exclaiming: – You are the holy confessors of Christ, destroyers of idols, who left their fatherland and property to suffer with Christ! When morning came, the military commander Maximus, sitting down at the trial seat, led the holy martyr Calliopios out of prison for interrogation. Having placed it before him, he asked: -Have you abandoned your madness and agree to fulfill the royal command and worship the gods to save your life? Or, on the contrary, do you want to perish humbly, like your teacher Christ? “I am surprised,” answered the saint, “at your shamelessness!” You have heard the same answer from me many times: I am a Christian and will die for Christ; again now you ask me the same thing and are not ashamed to take up arms against the truth. I fervently desire to suffer like my Teacher Christ and strive to selflessly die for Him! Having heard this and having understood the martyr’s unyielding intention and having become convinced of his unshakable spiritual strength, the military commander ordered him to be crucified like Christ on the cross. Then it was Maundy Thursday, when the Holy Mystery of Christ's Supper is commemorated. Saint Theoklia, seeing her son led, gave the soldiers five gold coins, begging them to crucify Calliopius not like Christ, but upside down. She did this out of humility, considering it an unworthy thing for her son to be like his Lord Christ in the image of the crucifixion. So, Saint Calliopius was crucified upside down for Christ, on the Thursday of the saving supper. On Great Friday, at the third hour of the day, he gave up his spirit into the hands of God, when the Divine voice descended to him from heaven: “Enter Christ’s fellow citizen and joint heir of the saints” 2459. When the dead body of Saint Calliopius was taken from the cross, his blessed mother, glorifying Christ, hugged her son by the neck, and then immediately betrayed her soul. The Christian brothers came, took the bodies of both and buried them in a place of honor in one grave, praising the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. On the same day, the memory of Saint Rufinus the deacon, the holy martyr Aquilina, and with them two hundred soldiers who died in Sinope around 310. On the same day, the memory of our venerable father Daniil of Pereyaslavl. Pamphylia was in ancient times a part of the Asia Minor coast, enclosed by Lycia and Cilicia and running along the Pamphylian Sea (now Adalia Gulf). Sharing the historical fate of all of Asia Minor, Pamphylia was successively under Persian, Macedonian and Syrian rule, then became part of the Persian kingdom and in 120 BC became a Roman province. The population, which was a mixture of natives with alien Cilicians and Greeks, had customs and customs reminiscent of the Cilicians and engaged in sea robbery on a large scale. The most important cities of this predominantly mountainous country, filled with the Taurus system: Ataleia (Adalie), Side, (Eski-Adalie), Kibira, Aspeid, Pergia, Solion. Patricians were persons of noble birth in Rome; senator - an official who holds the highest official position in the state. Calliopius is a Greek word and when translated into Russian it means pretty, with a good look. Cilicia - Asia Minor province. The holy martyr Calliopius died on April 7, 304, Friday, in the Cilician (in Asia Minor) city of Pompeozola. You might be interested in: