Holy Martyr Theoteknos of Antioch

Nahr al-‘Âṣî, Antioch

The tenth of October in the Holy Orthodox Church is the feast-day of a fourth-century martyr for the Christian faith at Antioch – the Roman military officer Saint Theoteknos. Theoteknos suffered a similar fate for his faith that his near-contemporaries Sergios and Bacchos did, and their hagiographies share several similar features.

Theoteknos [Gk. Θεότεκνος, L. Theotecnus, Ar. Ṯiyyûtaknûs ثيوتكنوس] was a Roman career military officer who made a name for himself serving under the Emperor Maximianus Herculius. When it happened that Maximianus arrived in Antioch on campaign, he ordered that all the inhabitants make sacrifice to the pagan gods. Theoteknos refused to obey the order, and was thereby discovered to be a Christian. Maximianus ordered Theoteknos to be stripped of his rank and honours, dressed in women’s clothing, and sent down among the slave women as a form of ritual humiliation. Theoteknos was summoned again into the Emperor’s presence after three weeks. Thinking that the humiliation would have broken his spirit, the Emperor again confidently commanded the officer to sacrifice to the pagan idols. Again, however, Theoteknos confessed Christ and would not obey.

Maximian threatened Theoteknos’s life, saying he placed it in peril if he would not submit – but the saint was silent and made no answer. The emperor handed Theoteknos over to the executioners. They cut his tendons, applied scalding irons to his feet, and then had him thrown into a vat of boiling pitch. But no sooner had the saint gone into the cauldron, but the flames beneath it were snuffed out. At once the cauldron became cool to the touch. Maximian, who had been watching, was now stricken with dread, and dared not torture the martyr any further. He handed Theoteknos over to his centurion, to be kept under guard in Antioch.

Theoteknos was thrown into prison with another Christian, a man named Alexandros. The former officer helped Alexandros break free of his confinement and escape. But when the centurion learned of this, he had Theoteknos subjected to even more brutal tortures, and finally handed down the orders to have the saint drowned by affixing a heavy stone around his neck. The Orthodox hagiography says that he was cast into the sea, but according to Holweck’s Martyrologium, Saint Theoteknos was drowned in the Nahr al-‘Âṣî. Either way, it appears that his body was carried to sea, and it was found at a small coastal settlement in Cilicia named Rusob (or Rosa), where he was found by local Christians and buried with due honours. Holy martyr Theoteknos, pray unto Christ our God for our salvation!