Holy Martyrs Iouventinos and Maximinos of Antioch

Saints Iouventinos and Maximinos of Antioch

Today in the Holy Orthodox Church is the feast-day of two martyred soldiers of Julian the Apostate, the Saints Iouventinos and Maximinos, who were stripped of their ranks and executed in the year 363. They are honoured and commemorated in both the West and the East, though for us their feast-day falls on the fifth of September, and for our Latin brethren their feast falls on the twenty-fifth of January.

Iouventinos [L. Juventinus, Gk. Ιουβεντίνος] and Maximinos [L. Maximus, Gk. Μαξιμίνος] were among the armour-bearers (the technical term is hypaspistai ὑπασπισταὶ) of Julian’s entourage. In classical times, armour-bearers were among the most élite rank of trusted troops in the Greek, and later Roman, army. We may thus assume that Iouventinos and Maximinos were both highly skilled in combat, renowned for bravery and politically astute enough to ascend the ranks. They were present with Julian’s army when the emperor was planning to launch his reckless, wicked war of aggression against Sâsânian Persia, which he was staging from the city of Antioch, the native town of both men.

Julian’s overall presence in Antioch was broadly resented for several reasons. His desire to restore the temple of Apollo at Daphnē was one major sticking point. His impious treatment of the relics of Saint Babylas whom we commemorated yesterday, in seeking to restore the Temple of Apollo, led to a mass demonstration among the Christians of the city. Later, when the Temple of Apollo caught fire, Julian blamed the Christians and closed the Cathedral in Antioch while he began an investigation which turned up no evidence of foul play. In addition, Julian led an austere, puritanical lifestyle which clashed somewhat with the more hedonic habits of the Antiochians, and which they were (rightly) wont to view as hypocritical. In his Ecclesiastical History the Blessed Theodoret of Kyrrhos refers to Julian’s ‘mask of moderation’.

As mentioned above, Julian’s plan to embark on a needless, hubristic military campaign against the Persians – who were traditionally the enemies of Rome, but who at that time posed no threat to Rome’s borders and indeed sought more peaceful relations – was popular among some of the senior officers of the army, but it also served to alienate him from the Antiochians. We must remember, after all, that Antioch’s gæographical position rendered her vulnerable to Persian attack, and the Antiochians keenly remembered the repeated sieges of Šâh Šâpur II against their city. The notables of Antioch were eager to give peace a chance, which was not high on Julian’s list of priorities.

But Saints Iouventinos and Maximinos actually became embroiled in Julian’s ‘food politics’ in Antioch. There was some long-standing dispute between Julian and the Antiochian notables over food prices and supply, with Julian accusing them of hoarding at the expense of the citizens. It is unclear whether or not Julian was justified in this accusation, but he certainly didn’t help matters when he personally decided to offer extravagant, bloody sacrifices of flesh meats to the pagan gods in public festival. He scattered the blood throughout the main marketplace, befouling the bread and meat and fruit and vegetables which were being sold there. And two of the people who were overheard, at a military banquet, to object strongly to this vulgar display of waste and despoiling of the city’s food supply were his own Antiochian armour-bearers, Iouventinos and Maximinos.

One of their fellow-officers, who was present at the banquet, reported them to Julian, who had them seized and brought before him. Evidently he expected Iouventinos and Maximinos to recant and to show the requisite loyalty to him and to the idols he worshipped. But the effect upon the two of them was much the reverse. Having been brought before Julian, they took the opportunity to upbraid him to his face, both for his wasteful extravagance in defiling the food with sacrificial blood, and for his apostasy from the Church. Incensed, the apostate emperor had the two of them stripped of their rank, tortured and beheaded. Thus, the two armour-bearers exchanged worldly rank and status for an everlasting heavenly glory in their martyrdom, and put to shame the pagan impiety of the apostate emperor.

Julian had the word put out that the two soldiers had been executed for mutiny, in order to prevent them from being venerated as martyrs. But the citizens of Antioch, when they heard of what had happened to Saints Iouventinos and Maximinos, at risk of their lives went and claimed their remains. They interred the two armour-bearers in a magnificent tomb, which soon became a site of veneration for the Christians of Antioch. Blessed Theodoret was not the only Antiochian hierarch to pay reverence in writing to these two martyrs – Saint John Chrysostom also wrote a homily in their honour. Holy saints Iouventinos and Maximinos, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!