Holy Martyrs Chrysanthos and Daria

Chrysanthos and Daria lived during the reign of emperor Numerianus in 284. Chrysanthos was the son of a Pelemon, a Senator of Alexandria, and Daria came from Athens.

A bishop who lived hidden in a cave taught Chrysanthos the faith of Christ. When Chrysanthos had been baptised by him and he preached Christ, his father locked him in prison and punished him with a lot of days of hunger. Because the saint stood firm on the faith of Christ, his father fetched a beautiful maid from Athens, Daria by name, who was a philosopher. He forced his son Chrysanthos to marry her with the hope that love would move him from the faith of Christ. When the saint saw Daria, he behaved to her as if she were his sister, not his wife, because they had both agreed to remain virgin to death. So, instead of Daria convincing Chrysanthos, Chrysanthos convinced Daria with his teaching. Thus, she forsook the ancestral impiety, believed in Christ and was baptised. They both taught the people to be prudent and pure.

When the Greeks heard that the saints convinced the women to leave their men and marry Christ, they got angry and slandered the saints to prefect Cellerinus. The prefect delivered them to tribune Claudius who took them out of the city and punished them with various tortures but when Claudius saw that the saints remained unharmed, he (together with his wife and children) believed in Christ.