Saint Markos of Arethousaالقديس مرقس الرستني
The twenty-ninth of March, in the Holy Orthodox Church, is the feast day of Saint Markos of Arethousa in Syria, who was one of the fourth-century martyrs who suffered under the sanguinary persecutions of Julian the Apostate. He himself showed considerable bravery in the face of persecution, laying down his life so that his parishioners would be spared torment and death. His nobility in the face of torment so affected and moved his persecutors that many of them returned to the Christian faith.
Saint Markos [Gk. Μάρκος, L. Marcus, Ar. Marqus مرقس] was born sometime in the late third century, probably sometime before the year 270. He was already an elderly man by the time he became the bishop of Arethousa, which is today ar-Rastan in Homs Governorate in Syria. Many bishops in his time were involved in the disputes over the substance of Christ, and in controversies with the Arians. Saint Markos was, at least in this dispute, a peace-loving man and one unwilling to enter the lists in intellectual disputations. Like Saint Meletios, Bishop Markos had little taste for such disputes. He was present at Sirmium when the so-called First Creed of Sirmium was draughted, signalling to some that he was of the party in the Church that sought a ‘homoiousian’ compromise with the Arians.
However, his zeal for the Faith was not to be underestimated by such peaceable overtures. Saint Markos must have repudiated the disastrous Third Council of Sirmium and thus rejected any compromise with the Arians in the end. He also undertook a great conversion of the people of Arethousa from paganism to Christianity. He preached in the public squares, and throngs of people came to hear him speak. He also supported – or indeed may have led himself – a party that destroyed a pagan temple in Arethousa and built an Orthodox Christian church in its place.
When Julian the Apostate entered Syria to mount his bloodthirsty war against Persia, the pagans at Arethousa saw their chance to take revenge upon the hierarch who had destroyed their temple. They sought him out, and he hid himself at first, thinking perhaps to avoid a confrontation which might leave many Arethousans dead. But when he saw that the pagans were torturing and killing Christian laypeople in order to get to him, Saint Markos gave himself up and placed himself in the pagans’ hands, on the condition that they would leave the Christian flock alone.
The pagans, having no regard for Saint Markos’s advanced years, stripped him naked, dragged him through the streets, tore out his hair, and beat him mercilessly. Taunting and jeering at him, they flung him into the sewer. When they pulled him out, they invited the children to prod him with their iron styluses and cut him with their knives. They then demanded that Saint Markos deliver to them the money needed to rebuild the pagan temple, but he refused to give them anything. And so they used vices and falaka torture on the elderly bishop’s feet, and cut off his ears with linen cords. At last they smeared honey upon the martyr’s body and hung him in a basket in the sun at midday, allowing the bees and wasps and hornets to sting him.
The pagans began to ask for less and less money toward rebuilding their temple, but Saint Markos would not relent to giving them one single coin. In this way, he actually earned their grudging admiration and respect, and even sympathy. At length the people of Arethousa convinced the pagans to lower the basket and let Saint Markos go free, and many of his former tormentors actually came again to listen to him speak. Many of them repented and turned to Christ, and were again allowed into the Church. Saint Markos was praised by both Saint Gregory of Nazianzus and Blessed Theodoret of Kyrrhos. Holy hieromartyr Markos, steadfast confessor of Christ before the rage of the pagans, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!
Other saints that suffered under Julian the Apostate, whom we commemorate today, are Saint Kyrillos the Deacon of Ba‘albak and those who suffered with him. Like Saint Markos, Saint Kyrillos had preached Christ for a long time in what is now Lebanon, and he had destroyed several temples to the pagan gods, including those at Heliopolis. The pagans also seized him when Julian arrived in Syria, and they disembowelled him and ate his liver. The people who committed this atrocity upon Saint Kyrillos were at once afflicted with blindness and boils. (Still, I am sure that Julian’s imperial propagandists referred to these people as ‘moderate rebels’.) During the persecutions in Ba‘albak there was a concomitant slaughter of Christians by pagans in Gaza and in ‘Asqalân, in which many were killed. Holy deaconmartyr Kyrillos and all of those with you, pray unto Christ our God for us sinners!
Apolytikion for Saint Markos of Arethousa in Syria, Tone 3:
In preparation for the contest, you anointed an assembly of martyrs
and bolstered them by your steadfastness, O glorious Markos.
You finished your course together with them
and all of you were found worthy of the joy of heaven.
Righteous father, entreat Christ our God to grant us His great mercy.
Apolytikion for Saint Kyrillos of Heliopolis, Tone 3:
In preparation for the contest, O glorious Kyrillos,
You anointed an assembly of martyrs
And strengthened them by your steadfastness.
You finished your course with them.
And you were all found worthy of the joys of heaven.
O righteous Father,
Pray to Christ our God to grant us his great mercy!
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