Страдание святых мучеников Мануила, Савела и Исмаила

The holy martyrs Manuel, Savel and Ismail were brothers and came from the Persian country 4027. Their parents were eminent people, but not of the same faith: their father adhered to Persian unbelief, and their mother was a pious Christian. She raised her children from a very early age in Christian piety, just as in early childhood she fed them with her mother’s milk and raised them in the fear of God; and the blessed presbyter Eunoik gave birth to these holy brothers through the bath of holy baptism and taught them the Word of God. When they reached adulthood, they were enlisted in the military ranks. But having dedicated their bodily strength to the Persian king Alamundar 4028, with their spirit they all the time worked for the King of heaven, our Lord Jesus Christ, trying to please Him in everything with their good deeds. One day they were sent by their king to the Greco-Roman emperor Julian the Apostate 4029 in order to make peace with him. Julian at first received them with honor and, showing them his favor in every possible way, treated them all the time in a friendly manner; but then, having learned that they were Christians, he was filled with anger at them, and contrary to the customs and laws common to all nations, he gave these brothers over to torture for their faith in Christ and killed them after the most severe tortures. Their martyrdom was as follows. One day, the lawless emperor decided to go to Bithynia, to a place called Orgia Trigon 4030, for one of the godless pagan holidays was soon approaching there. When he, having crossed by ship from Constantinople to Chalcedon 4031, arrived at the place we named, he immediately began, with all the multitude of people gathered there, to celebrate his nasty celebration, worshiping idols and making countless sacrifices to demons: - and here began continuous feasting with singing and music and tambourine playing - and in honor of the destructive pagan gods, during this time everything was celebrated here many vile iniquities. The servants of Christ Manuel, Savel and Ismail, being right there, along with the emperor, did not even want to look at this wicked celebration; Once moving away from the rejoicing and standing at a distance, they sobbed and cried about the deception and delusion of these people, and prayed to the Lord God - and for themselves, so that they would not be defiled by communication with idolatrous victims - and for all those who were mistaken, so that the Lord would lead them to the knowledge of the truth. “Do not leave, Lord,” they prayed, “these people to remain in such a great destruction of evil, and do not allow Your rational creation to be in such madness; - after all, they are more unreasonable here than even the stones and trees they reverence: at least their wooden idols, like insensitive and inanimate creatures, do not know what they are doing in front of them; these same people, honored by You with their rational soul and being Your image and likeness, do not see and do not understand what they are doing and to whom they pay divine respect: they walk in darkness, are mistaken and go to eternal destruction. While the saints, being far away, were crying and praying, the emperor, looking at those making sacrifices and feasting with them and not seeing the Persian envoys with him, ordered them to be found and called to him so that they could have fun with him. Then one of the royal bed servants, finding them standing separately, began to call them to the royal celebration: he thought that they also belonged to idolatrous wickedness. But the servants of Christ unanimously answered the royal bed-keeper who invited them: - Depart from us: we will not reject the faith in which we were raised from youth, and therefore we will not leave our Lord and will not worship the demons living in you; and may it not happen to us that we become involved in this obvious error: we are not so crazy and unreasonable that, having despised the living God, our Creator, we began to worship a soulless creature. And it was not for this reason that we undertook such a long journey and came here to renounce our faith, but to make peace between the Persian and Greco-Roman states. And your king, as well as those who are like-minded with him, know well that they will not turn us away or convince us to go over to their wickedness, even if they betray us to fire and torment and deprive us of life itself. After that, the bed-keeper, leaving the saints, conveyed these words to Julian, and he immediately flared up with anger and rage at them, however, he decided not to put them to torture right away, so as not to interfere with his wicked celebration, but postponed it until the morning, ordering only to imprison the servants of God. They, going to the prison, sang to the Lord: - “Come, let us sing to the Lord, let us shout to God, the rock of our salvation; let us come before His face with praise, let us shout to Him in songs” (Ps. 95:1-2). - “Who is God as great as our God!” (Ps. 77:14). We are His people and the creation of His hands, and we will always call on Him. The next day, Julian, having ascended to the judgment seat, ordered the Persian envoys to be called to him and began to speak to them like this: “You, good men, were sent here by your king as people who were faithful to themselves and well disposed towards us, in order to restore the long-awaited peace between both kingdoms. But this peace can be restored between us only with the help of loving consent and mutual affection. However, what kind of agreement can you have with us and where is your love for us if you did not want to celebrate with us yesterday and enjoy the fun in honor of the same gods that you, Persians, honor 4032? After all, the Persians, just like us, worship the sun, moon and stars, the all-bright fiery power and our other gods; - Why did you refuse to honor them with us and did not want to participate in our service to them, if only for the sake of making our conditions regarding the conclusion of peace stronger and more durable? But if you despise and humiliate our gods, and if you are not of the same mind with us, then it means that you have come to us not to establish peace, but to violate it and to renew hostility and war. To this the holy men replied: “We came to you from our king in order to conclude peaceful conditions, so that your warriors would not cross our borders, and ours yours, so that we would not devastate each other’s land, and so that our merchants would always have free access to your state, and yours to our land, and so that both would return to their home without any offense; - it is for the conditions about this that we were sent to you, and not at all for reasoning about the gods. Let everyone worship the god he wants, and in the way he likes. Yes, because of faith there is never a war between kingdoms; but strife, quarrels and battles always occur over cities, regions and beyond their borders and boundaries. You, having abandoned all negotiations about peace, for which we were sent to you, begin to talk about something else, which you and I should not talk about. After all, you are not talking to us about the well-being of your empire, not about a peaceful attitude towards our state, which is adjacent to yours, but all the time you are asking about the gods and talking about faith. If this is what you want, then know that we, although Persians by birth, are Christians by faith, raised by our mother in piety and instructed in the true faith by our spiritual father, the presbyter Eunoikos. And in our fatherland there were many who wanted to turn us away from our Lord Jesus Christ to idolatry, but did not succeed in this: by the grace of our Master we remained unshakable and firm in the confession of our faith; We still hope for the Lord’s help - that even now no one here will turn us away from our holy faith and no one will convince us to go over to the service of demons, which truly is vain and full of all deception, delusion and lies. Then the tormentor, filled with anger, said to them: - How do you, being simple and ignorant people - who do not even know our language - how do you dare so brazenly, and with such crazy speeches, to blaspheme our faith, which we profess, educated people who have passed through all the wisdom of books to perfection? We are also familiar with your teaching. After all, you know that I also studied your Christian books, but seeing that there was nothing but lies in them and nothing true, I immediately rejected them, so that, due to the clarity of what was written in them, I would not fall into any error. And which of those people who believe your books and act on them - which of these has ever shown himself to be glorious and perfect and what valiant things have he done in his life? Therefore, I advise you: - leave this childish and false reasoning and believe better in what the best philosophers have long taught. If you do not wish to accept my good advice to you, then, contrary to your will, you will listen to the torment to which I will immediately betray you. “We have learned from our Lord not to be afraid of those who kill the body and not to think that we must respond to those who want to torment us, for the Holy Spirit Himself will strengthen us in suffering and give us the word and boldness to respond. We ask you, what do you see that is crazy in us, you who consider yourself the wisest of all people? And who is generally more unreasonable - the one who has come to know the true God and Creator of all things and reveres Him piously, or the one who, having withdrawn from the living God, worships soulless creatures, stones and wood, or something similar to them? Truly he is mad who, instead of God, honors a dead thing; - the one who serves the living God is wise. After all, what is first of all the work of the human mind is to know one’s Creator, the Giver of all gifts, and to believe in Him, and to diligently serve Him; and not to know Him, your Creator and benefactor, and to work for your enemy, a soul-destroying demon, is extreme foolishness. And your ancient philosophers, who were in such a harmful error, only seemed wise, but in fact they were the most foolish people - according to the word of the holy Apostle: “Calling themselves wise, they became fools” (Rom. 1:22), and their foolish heart was darkened; It is to them that you have become like, if not worse: after all, they remained in their madness, not knowing and never before professing the true faith, but you, enlightened by holy baptism and brought up in Christianity, rejected Christ God, and now by all who truly believe in the Lord, instead of a Christian you are called a Hellenic, and instead of a pious one - ungodly and godless. Greatly irritated by these words of the martyrs, Julian, filled with immeasurable rage, ordered to immediately cruelly torture them. First of all, they were stripped naked and, laying them on the ground, they beat them without mercy with harsh belts on the spine and stomach, and then they hung them in a painful place, nailing their arms and legs high to a tree, and planed their entire body with iron teeth. The martyrs of Christ, valiantly enduring these severe torments, raised their eyes to heaven and prayed to the Lord, thus crying out to Him: - O Lord! You, who were once nailed to the tree by unfaithful Jews and who blotted out the sins of the world with passion on the cross and death, look upon us, now hanging wounded on the tree, and since our nature is weak, send us Your help from above and give us relief in our suffering, for only in hope of You did we dare to accept this martyrdom. How cruel and terrible these torments are, You Yourself, Lord, know and see, but out of love for You, O sweetest Jesus, they are pleasant to us! While the saints were praying like this, an Angel of the Lord suddenly appeared before them; but only the holy martyrs saw him; the darkened eyes of the wicked were not worthy of it. This Angel, having consoled the suffering, gave them such consolation in their suffering that they seemed to no longer feel the pain from their wounds and, it seemed, had never even endured all this torment. Then Julian ordered the holy martyrs to be taken down from the tree, and when they were taken down, he, as if mocking them, said to them: “You see how I spare you, without subjecting you to even greater torment.” I hope that after this relatively small punishment you will now become like-minded with us. The holy martyrs, having well understood all the flattery of his words, answered him with even greater boldness: – Don’t think or hope, enemy of Christ, that we will betray our faith in the Lord. So, continue to torment our bodies if you want to torment us even more: we are ready to endure everything. Whether you expose us to wounds, fire, a sword, or something even more terrible, we will consider all this to be joy rather than torment: we will endure all this with joy for Jesus who loved us! Then the lawless Julian, seeing that Manuel, as the eldest of the brothers, spoke more and bolder than the other brothers, ordered him to be taken to the side, and he himself, starting a conversation with the two remaining - with Savel and Ismail, with slyness began to say to them like this: “Even though you are children of the same parents, you are not people of the same character at all: your elder brother is not even worthy to be called your brother, since he is stubborn, angry, shameless, talks and argues a lot and, remaining adamant in his madness, carries you along with him and does not allow you to choose the best for yourself; and you, as I see, are people of kind, meek, and not quarrelsome disposition, and generally prudent. So, now listen to my good advice - leave your brother to perish in his vain delusion and in insane resistance - make a sacrifice to our gods, and then you will receive great mercy from them, and rich gifts and honor from us. The saints, not even wanting to listen to these flattering words, loudly began to denounce Julian’s treachery and blaspheme his madness. Then Julian, again inflamed with anger, ordered them to be taken to the place of torture and their ribs to be scorched with burning candles. The martyrs, valiantly enduring these torments, all the time glorified the Lord and reproached the tormentor. Then Julian ordered Manuel to be brought in a second time and - now with caresses, now with threats - again began to force him to worship idols. Finally, seeing that he, like a rock, was unshakable in his confession of Christ, he began to torment him, like his brothers: he ordered an iron nail to be driven into the head of each of the martyrs, and sharp stakes to be driven into the nails of their hands and feet, and then, already so ulcerated, he ordered their heads to be cut off with a sword, and their bodies to be burned. And so the holy martyrs were led to the place of execution - to a place called Konstantinovo, where, before the shedding of their blood, they offered the following prayer to the Lord for the last time: “Righteous God, without beginning, who brought everything from non-existence into being, who in our last year, for the sake of salvation, belittled Himself, who was with people in the form of a servant and endured the cross in order to free us from the bonds of sin and make us heirs of His Kingdom, accept Your servants into the world and count us among those who have pleased You from all eternity, for for the sake of Your holy name we voluntarily accept this sword. beheading and departure from real life - and turn to You, all-merciful Master, this people enslaved to the devil, who surround us in such a multitude, and send them enlightenment of mind and understanding to the knowledge of the truth, so that, having come to know You, the One True God, they may serve You alone and receive eternal salvation from You. While the holy martyrs were praying like this, a voice was heard from above: - Come to receive the crown of glory, since you have valiantly accomplished your feat. The holy martyrs were beheaded on the 17th day of June. But when the wicked servants wanted to fulfill another order of their lawless king - to burn the bodies of Christ's passion-bearers - instantly, at the command of God, the earth shook, and the place on which the saints lay sank deeply, and thus the resulting abyss accepted the bodies of the martyrs and hid them, so that the vile hands of the tormentors would no longer touch them and the power of fire would not turn them into ashes; - and all the servants fled from fear. Then many of the people standing there, seeing such a miracle, believed in Christ and, rejecting the Hellenic error, joined the society of Christians. After two days, during which Christians continually offered up prayers to the Lord day and night in this place, the earth parted again and lifted up the bodies of the saints, and behold, an indescribable fragrance poured out everywhere. Then the faithful, filled with great joy, lovingly took the bodies of the saints and buried them with honor in this wondrous place; after that, healing began to pour out in abundance from the tomb of the holy martyrs for all the sick. And the wicked apostate Julian soon after died a significant and terrible death. After killing the Persian envoys, the holy martyrs Manuel, Savel and Ismail, he set off with his entire army to Persia 4033. Demons seduced him into this through their wizards - false prophets, who predicted his victory and conquest of the Persians. The Persian king, having heard about the beating of his ambassadors, was filled with deep sadness and great anger: having learned that the lawless Julian was coming against him, he also gathered his entire army and, standing on the border of his state, took up arms against his proud enemy. And when both armies met, a great battle began. But the Persians soon overpowered and defeated the Roman army, thus crushing all of Julian's strength. It was during this battle that the apostate Julian was struck by the wrath of God: the wicked emperor was struck by an invisible hand and died in great torment, in the end becoming a laughing stock for all the Persians, against whom he so proudly set out, with his vain hope - for the joy of the demons in whom he believed and in whom he so hoped. Christians, having thus freed themselves from cruel persecution and torment, glorified their Savior, Christ God, to whom be honor and glory from us, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen 4034. By the faith of Christ, the wounding of all-blessedness, and of this, having truly drunk the cup, the Persian ministry and insolence brought down to earth, the Trinity of equal number, making prayers for all of us. The Persian state at that time occupied a huge space between the Tigris, the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea Alamundar, as a Persian king, is completely unknown in history; some think that it was one of the Persian generals. Julian, son of Constantius, brother of Constantine the Great, was born in 331 AD; At first he was trained in the Christian religion, but, having become Caesar in 355, he openly rejected Christianity, for which he received the name Apostate. It is believed that Trigon was actually a church dedicated to idols, near Chalcedon. Chalcedon is a city in Bithynia, at the southern end of the Bosphorus, opposite Byzantium. In his philosophical and religious beliefs, Julian was an eclectic, i.e. - from all religious teachings, he chose for himself everything that he liked and was generally in agreement with his worldview; he also believed in one supreme God, but identified Him with Mithras or the solar god of the Eastern cult; and the Persians, as you know, also revered the sun as their main deity. As you know, Julian set out on a campaign against the Persians on March 5, 363. The solemn celebration of the memory of these saints is very ancient; 30 years after their death, Theodosius Vel. 395 built a church in their honor in Constantinople, and the monk Germanus, later patriarch (d. 740), wrote a canon in their memory. You might be interested in: