Holy Martyrs Paulos and Ioulianē of Ptolemaïs

Saints Paulos and Ioulianē of Ptolemaïs

The twenty-seventh of August is the feast-day of Saints Paulos and Ioulianē, a brother and sister who were martyrs in Syria. They suffered under the reign of the Emperor Aurelian who ruled during the first half of the 270s. This brother and sister are highly venerated among the early martyrs, both in the East and in the West. Saint Ioulianē is one of the 140 saints whose statues adorn the Colonnade in Saint Peter’s Square in Rome.

The brother and sister Paulos [Paul] and Ioulianē [Juliana] were born in Galilee, in what is now the city of Acre, which was then called Ptolemaïs and was part of the administrative district of Syria Palæstina (Roman Palestine). Saint Paulos was a studious and sincere Christian, and he read the Holy Scriptures and applied them with diligence to his own life. He mastered his passions and drew many people to the Christian faith by his example. His sister, Saint Ioulianē, was largely cut from the same cloth as her brother.

At some point during his reign the Emperor came to Ptolemaïs. Paulos visited his sister and counselled her to be courageous and steadfast in her faith, as the time of persecution was shortly to come upon them. As the Emperor was in procession in the streets, Paulos made the Sign of the Cross upon himself as the Emperor’s party passed. He was seen by certain of the pagans, who seized him and brought him before Aurelian.

Even before the Emperor of Rome, Saint Paulos was without fear, and he confessed Christ boldly to Aurelian’s face and denounced the worship of idols. The emperor ordered that Paulos be taken by the executioners, strung up by his limbs, and his flesh torn from his limbs with whips laced with iron hooks. When his sister Ioulianē saw this, she began to rebuke the Emperor for his cruelty, for which he ordered that she be thrown into a vat of boiling pitch. These tortures were without effect on the two saints. The executioners, whose names were Kodratos and Akakios, took pity upon the martyrs and tended their wounds, and they came to believe in Christ through the martyrs’ sufferings. The emperor had the two executioners taken and beheaded, for which the glorious Saints Kodratos and Akakios themselves received the crown of martyrdom.

The emperor had the two siblings bound in iron shackles and thrown into the dungeon. There, messengers from the Lord ministered to their wounds, loosed their shackles, and gave them bread to eat and water to drink, which strengthened their spirits and their bodies for the trials to come. Saints Paulos and Ioulianē gave thanks to the Lord.

The following day the saints were brought before Aurelian, and commanded to make offerings of incense to the idols. Refusing, they were beaten. However, one of the executioners, a certain Stratonikos, took pity upon Saint Ioulianē, and came to believe in Christ through her sufferings. He offered to marry her and witness for her in order to deliver her from the executioners. However, Ioulianē sternly refused him, saying that he had his duty as a soldier of the Emperor, and that she had hers as a follower of Christ. When the Emperor learned what Stratonikos had done, he also had Stratonikos beheaded, and he too met martyrdom. He then had the two siblings cast into a pit with venomous serpents and reptiles. But again the Lord preserved them from death.

The following day Aurelian ordered that Paulos be beaten in the face with lead implements, and whipped on his sides with rods and thorns. Ioulianē, he ordered to be delivered to a brothel to be bodily defiled. However, again a messenger of the Lord kept the martyr safe from this mistreatment, and any man who approached Ioulianē to defile her was stricken blind by the angel. The saint, however, took pity on the men, and she poured water over their eyes and healed them.

Piqued to rage, the Emperor ordered that a fiery pit be prepared, that the two saints be cast inside, and that they be stoned to death. However, again an angel of the Lord appeared and threatened the Emperor with fire from heaven, and fearing for himself the Emperor had the two saints hauled out. He ordered that their eyes be put out and that they be burnt at the stake. Saints Poulos and Ioulianē went to their execution singing from Psalm 43: ‘But thou hast saved us from our enemies, and hast put them to shame that hated us.’ This fire, too, failed to harm them, and the Emperor gave the order to behead them. In this way the two siblings gained the crown of martyrdom in the year of our Lord 273. Holy martyrs Paulos and Ioulianē, righteous and steadfast witnesses of Christ before the pagans, pray unto Christ for us that our souls may be saved!