Saint Hesychios the Senator March 2
Holy martyr Hesychios lived during the reign
of king Maximian in 302. He was the first and the leader in the
royal palace and
the Senate, because he was magistrianus by office. When Maximian
ordered that all Christians who were royal soldiers ought
to be deprived of their belts (which were a sign of their royal
merit) and live as civilians and without honour, many Christians
preferred to live without any outward honour due to this illegal
order than to be honoured and lose their soul. St. Hesychios
was numbered with these Christians as well. When the king heard
this, he ordered that the saint ought to be stripped of the
expensive clothes, which he used to wear, and be dressed with
a shabby mantle without sleeves woven from hair and to be
as disgraced and disdained as to consort with women.
When this had been carried out, the king invited
him and asked him: "Aren't you ashamed, Hesychios, that you
lost the
honour and office of magistrianus and that you have been debased
to this kind of life? Or maybe you don't know that the
Christians, whose way of life you preferred, have no power to
restore you to your previous great honour and office?" The
saint replied: "Your honour, o king, is temporary but the
honour and glory which Christ gives is eternal and without end."
Because of these words the king got angry and ordered his men
to tie a great millstone around the saint's neck and then to
throw him in the middle of river Orontus, which lies in Coele
Syria and which is commonly called Oronge. Thus, the blessed
man received the crown of martyrdom from the Lord.