Holy Martyr Aemilianus of Dorostorum in Bulgaria
The Holy Martyr Aemilianus, a Slav by birth, suffered for Christ during the brief reign of the apostate emperor Julian, who in 361 sought to restore the worship of the pagan gods throughout the empire and issued an edict that any Christian who would not honour the idols should be put to death. Aemilianus lived in the Thracian city of Dorostorum (modern Silistra) on the south bank of the Danube, where he was a slave in the household of the local prefect, a fanatical pagan; he kept his faith in Christ secretly, but the apparent submission grieved his soul. When the imperial vicar Capitolinus came to Dorostorum to investigate Christians, the holy youth, taking up a hammer, went out by night and broke in pieces all the idols in the pagan temples, the marketplace and the streets. The next morning, when an innocent peasant was being seized for the deed, Aemilianus came forward, signed himself with the cross, and confessed all openly. After fierce scourging he was sentenced to be burned alive on the bank of the Danube on 18 July 362. The flames did not at once touch him, but at last consumed him; his sister recovered his relics, and he is venerated as one of the protectors of the Bulgarian land.
Holy Martyr Emilian
362
He was from the town of Dorostolon in Thrace and during the reign of Julian the Apostate became a servant of the governor in that region. Before the time of his martyrdom he was a secret Christian. An imperial legate arrived in the town with orders to seize all Christians, but failed to find any; to show his pleasure he ordered a great feast for the whole town, complete with sacrifices to the pagan gods. On the night before the appointed feast, Emilian went around the town and smashed all the idols with a hammer. The following day there was an uproar, and an innocent villager was seized and charged with the crime. Emilian, seeing this, said to himself ‘If I conceal my action, what sort of use has it been? Shall I not stand before God as the slayer of an innocent man?’ So he presented himself to the legate and confessed what he had done. When the furious official asked Emilian on whose orders he had acted, Emilian replied ‘God and my soul commanded me to destroy those dead pillars that you call gods.’ As punishment, Emilian was subjected to many tortures and finally burned alive.
Holy Martyr Hyacinth of Amastris
The Holy Martyr Hyacinth was born to a pious Christian family in the city of Amastris (Amastra) in Paphlagonia, on the southern coast of the Black Sea. According to his Synaxarion, an angel appeared to his parents and gave him his name. Even as a small child the grace of God was upon him: while he was still three years old, on seeing a dead infant being borne to burial, he prayed and the child was raised to life, to the astonishment of all who saw it. Growing up in piety, when he was still a youth he came one day upon a great tree which the pagans of the city worshipped as a god; with holy zeal he cut it down. The pagans seized him in fury, dragged him before the prefect Castricius, and demanded that he sacrifice. When he refused, his teeth were knocked out one by one, his body was beaten and torn, and at last, bound with cords, he was dragged through the streets and cast half-dead into prison, where, after long suffering, he gave up his soul to the Lord, around the year 108 in the reign of Trajan. The faithful of Amastris recovered his body and buried it with honour; his tomb became famous for healings.
Venerable Pambo, hermit of the Egyptian desert
Saint Pambo (Pamvo) was one of the great Desert Fathers of Egypt and a contemporary of Saint Anthony the Great. Born about the year 303, he was among the first to join the abba Amoun in the Nitrian desert, settling on the Mountain of Nitria. Unlettered when he came, he asked the brother teaching him to read to recite the first verse of Psalm thirty-eight, "I said, I will take heed unto my ways, that I sin not with my tongue;" and on hearing it Pambo refused to learn another word, saying that he must first put this one into practice. He spent nineteen years pondering it, and the saying became a model of monastic vigilance. His face is said to have shone like lightning, as that of Moses on Sinai, so that the brethren could not look upon him; he hardly ever spoke unless first asked, and his answers were so weighed that even Saint Athanasius the Great consulted him. He was the spiritual father of many great ascetics, including the brothers known as the Tall Brothers and Saint Melania the Elder, who buried him. When he was dying, he said to those gathered round, "From the time I came into this place of solitude and built my cell I have not eaten bread which I had not earned by my own hands, and I have not repented of any word that I have spoken; yet I am going to the Lord as one who has not yet begun to serve God." He reposed about the year 386 or 390, aged seventy.
St Pambo, hermit of Egypt
c. 374
Abba Pambo was a contemporary of St Anthony the Great and one of the greatest of the Desert Fathers. He would only eat bread which he had earned by his own labors, plaiting baskets and mats out of reeds. In his later years, he became in appearance like an angel of God: his face shone so that the monks could not look on it. Through long ascetic labor, he was enabled to control his tongue so that no unnecessary word ever passed his lips. He never gave an immediate answer to even the simplest question, but always prayed and pondered on the question first. Once, when Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, was visiting the monks, they begged Abba Pambo to give the Patriarch a word. He answered: ‘If my silence is no help to him, neither will my words be.’ He reposed in peace, some say in 374, others in 386.