Priest-Martyr Januarius and Others with Him

Life

This saint was a bishop in Campania in Italy. In the time of the persecution of Maximian he was brought before a court and tormented with various tortures, which he bore without malice and with patience. When they cast him into fire, the fire was cooled by invisible dew, and the martyr stood unharmed in the midst of the flames and sang praise to God. Then they scraped his body with iron combs until the bones showed white, but the martyr without malice and with patience endured. His deacon Faustus and his lector Desiderius watched the sufferings of the martyr and wept for their spiritual father. Then they too were bound, and together with the bishop brought to the city of Puteoli and cast into prison. In that same prison, for the sake of Christ, were also the deacons of Puteoli, Proculus and Sosius, and two simple Christian laymen, Eutychius and Acutio. All seven were cast before wild beasts the following day. But the beasts did not touch them. Then they were all beheaded with the sword, and the Christians of the city of Naples secretly transferred the body of Saint Januarius to their own city and honorably placed it in a church. To this very day, innumerable miracles have appeared at the tomb of this saint. Among the many miracles it is also remembered that a certain poor widow, whose only son had died, took from the church the icon of Saint Januarius and placed it upon her dead son, weeping and praying to the saint. And her son came back to life. Saint Januarius suffered honorably in the year 305.

From the Hymn of Praise

### HOLY MARTYR THEODORE