Holy Martyr Varus

Life

He was a Roman officer in Egypt and at the same time a secret Christian. When seven Christian teachers were cast into prison, Varus visited them in prison, supplied them with necessities, and served them diligently. He marveled at the martyrs and lamented that he too, out of fear, could not become a martyr for Christ. Those men of God encouraged him, and Varus resolved to go with them himself to the torments. One of those men of God died in prison. When the godless governor brought the martyrs before him, he saw six, and asked where the seventh was. "I am the seventh!" said Varus. Then the enraged governor first tortured Saint Varus. He ordered that he be beaten naked with dry rods; then they bound him to a tree and cut pieces of flesh from him with knives, until Saint Varus surrendered his holy soul to God. His body was thrown on a dung heap. A certain woman named Cleopatra, from Palestine by birth and the widow of an officer, happened to be there with her son John. She secretly took the holy relics of Varus from the dung heap and buried them in her dwelling. After that she obtained permission from the governor to transfer from Egypt to Palestine the body of her deceased husband. As the wife of an officer, the governor immediately granted her permission. But blessed Christian Cleopatra did not transfer the body of her husband but the relics of the Holy Martyr Varus. She brought, therefore, the relics of the martyr to her native village of Edra near Tabor, and there honorably buried them. Then she also built a church to Saint Varus. And Saint Varus appeared to her often from the other world, radiant as an angel of God.