Holy Martyrs Gourias, Samōnas and Abibos of Edessa

Saints Gourias, Samōnas and Abibos of Edessa
القديسين الشهداء غوريا وصامونا وحبيب

The fifteenth of November is the feast-day of Saints Gourias, Samōnas and Abibos, confessors and martyrs of Edessa. Gourias and Samōnas and Abibos suffered for Christ at the end of the third century and at the beginning of the fourth century, respectively. According to Patriarch Makarios III (Zaym), all three were Syriac in origin, and hailed from villages near Aleppo. Gourias hailed from the village of Qaṭma north of ‘Afrîn; Samōnas from ‘Anadân 12 kilometres north of Aleppo; and Abibos from Tal ‘Adâ in Salamîya. Unlike a lot of the other early martyrs of the East, the cultus of these three saints still seems to be fairly localised to the Christian East: the Orthodox Church (and Antioch in particular), as well as the churches in the Assyrian tradition, whether in communion with the Latins or not. However, all three martyrs are quite important in the Orthodox tradition, and Abibos in particular is revered among the great martyrs of the Antiochian Church.

Saints Gourias [Gk. Γουρίας, L. Gurias, Ar. Ġûryâ غوريا] and Samōnas [Gk. Σαμωυάς, L. Samon, Ar. Ṣâmûnâ صامونا] were friends, priests and ‘preachers of the Word of God’. During the reign of Diocletian, the two friends played a significant rôle in strengthening the faith of the local Christians. They were arrested and brought to trial, where they were ordered to give sacrifices to the idols of the pagan gods. They refused and instead boldly confessed their faith in Christ before the præfect, Antoninos. As punishment, the two martyrs were beaten and hung up each by one wrist for five hours straight while heavy weights were suspended from their ankles. Then they were cast into an oubliette for three and a half months, with no food and little water. However, Gourias and Samōnas endured everything with patience. One of their fellow-prisoners overheard the prayer spoken by Samōnas, from whose eyewitness it was later transcribed:

O Lord my God, against Whose will not a single sparrow falls into the snare. It was You Who made room for David in his sorrow (Ps 4:1), Who proved the Prophet David stronger than lions (Dan 6), and granted a child of Abraham to be victor over torture and flames (Dan 3). You know also, Lord, the infirmity of our nature, You see the struggle set before us. Our foe strives to snatch us, the work of Your right hand, away from You and to deprive us of the glory which is in You. With Your compassionate eye watching over us, preserve in us the inextinguishable light of Your Commandments. Guide our steps by Your light, and make us worthy of Your Kingdom, for You are blessed unto ages of ages.

That night the guards took Gourias and Samōnas out of the prison, led them out of the city gates and had them beheaded. The faithful of Edessa went out to retrieve their bodies, and even the soil which had borne their precious blood, and brought them back into Edessa with incense and psalms praising God, to be tended and buried reverently.

About three decades after this, during the persecution under the reign of the last pagan emperor Licinius, a hue and cry went up on the orders of the governor Lucian for a deacon of Edessa named Abibos [Gk. Άβιβος, L. Habibus, Ar. Ḥabîb حبيب], who had been truly assiduous in promoting the true Faith, reading the Holy Scriptures to the people in the outlying villages around Edessa. Rather than be hunted down and run to earth, and rather than endangering his mother in whose house he lived, Abibos surrendered himself willingly to his persecutors, who brought him to the trial. Abibos freely and willingly confessed Christ there.

The governor ordered Abibos to be flogged and flayed, and then scourged with iron hooks. After these tortures Lucian, who was infuriated by the ineffectiveness of the torture upon the martyr, sentenced him not to be beheaded but rather burned alive. The executioners prepared the fire, and Abibos willingly went into the fire himself. Praying to the Lord the whole while, he surrendered his soul and achieved the victory. When the fire died down, his mother and his relations came to retrieve his body, which they discovered had been unharmed by the flames. They sought permission, and were given it, to bury his body next to those of Gourias and Samōnas, that they together might be honoured as martyrs for Christ. Later, a church was built on the site in honour of the martyrs.

A number of miracles attended the graves of the three holy martyrs. One of these is related in their hagiography. A certain fœderatus, a Goth, was sent to serve in Edessa. He saw and wanted a certain pretty and pious local young woman named Euphemia, and sought to take her to wife. He went to her mother, a widow of Edessa named Sophia, and asked permission to marry her, but the girl’s mother was understandably reticent. Before she gave him permission to marry Euphemia, she took him to the graves of Saints Gourias, Samōnas and Abibos and made him swear that he would never do her any harm, or insult her, but always love and cherish her.

After his term of service in Edessa was over, the Goth took Euphemia back to his homeland. As it turned out, he had deceived the poor girl: he was already married to a woman of his own tribe, and as per the tribal laws Euphemia was made to serve as the Goth’s bed-thrall, subservient to the Goth’s first wife in all things. The Goth threatened Euphemia with death, if she ever made known that they had married; and the Goth’s wife treated the girl horribly. Euphemia bore the Goth a son, but the jealous wife had the boy poisoned in the cradle. Moreover, before the evil woman died, she demanded that her husband bury Euphemia alive with her. The hagiography states that this appears to have been customary among the Goths who were still heathen. Thus threatened with death, and sealed in with the earth around her, Euphemia cried out to the three holy martyrs for protection.

The Lord preserved Euphemia from death. She was wondrously transported out of her grave and back to Edessa, indeed into the very church of the three holy martyrs, where her mother received her with joy. Euphemia told her mother what had befallen her, and when the Goth came to serve again in Edessa Sophia denounced him before the whole city. He was placed under arrest by the præfect and executed for his crimes. For this reason the akathist proclaims Saints Gourias, Samōnas and Abibos to be the ‘heavenly patrons of honourable marriage’. Their intercession is sought among those in troubled marriages and family turmoil. Holy saints Gourias, Samōnas and Abibos, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Apolytikion for Saints Gourias, Samōnas and Abibos of Edessa, Tone 5:

Christ our God, You have granted us the miracles of Your holy martyrs
Gourias, Samōnas and Abibos,
As a stronghold and protection.
Through their prayers, strengthen those in authority in every good deed,
For You alone are merciful and the Lover of Mankind!