Synaxarion of the Holy Martyr Dometios of Persia and his Two Disciples

St. Dometios of Persia (Feast Day - August 7)

Verses

You swiftly trained your initiates Father,
In all things your fellow contestants by stones.
On the seventh your two initiates were covered Dometios.

Saint Dometios was born during the reign of Constantine the Great in the year 318. He was from Persia. Having been catechized by a Christian named Abar and taught the faith of Christ, he abandoned his ancestral impiety and every other attachment to his relatives. Therefore he went to the city called Nisibis, which is found at the border between the land of the Romans and the land of the Persians. There the Saint entered a monastery, was baptized, was dressed in the monastic schema, and took on every struggle and asceticism.

However, due to the cooperation between the monks there with a wicked demon, he was slandered and therefore withdrew from there and went to the Monastery of the Holy Martyrs Sergius and Bacchus in the city of Theodosiopolis, and he followed the virtuous conduct of the Abbot and Archimandrite Urbil, of whom it is said that for sixty years he did not eat any cooked food, nor did he lie down on a bed, nor did he sit. By him he was elected to be ordained a Deacon. Because the Abbot considered elevating him to the office of Presbyter, when Saint Dometios understood this, he withdrew from there, and he went up a mountain, where the renowned one endured the heat of the summer and the cold of the winter, and the other miseries that come with the changes of the seasons.

Later he entered a man-made cave. Having remained there for a sufficient time, those who came to him he benefacted with miracles and healings, which he did in the name of the Lord. The unbelieving Greek pagans he turned from the error of the idols to the faith of Christ. When Julian the Apostate (361-363) learned of this when he went to Persia, he ordered for the Saint to be stoned to death. When those who went to stone him arrived, they found him chanting the Third Hour with his disciples. Thus with the density of the stones the defiled ones buried the athlete of Christ, together with his disciples, and in this way the three received the crown of the contest. Their Synaxis and Feast is celebrated in their Temple which is found beyond in Justiniana.

Apolytikion in the Fourth Tone

After disciplining thyself with prayer and fasting on the mountain, thou didst destroy the hosts of spiritual enemies with the weapon of the Cross. Thou didst bravely arm thyself again for martyrdom, and wast crowned both for thy life and for thy death, O blessed Hieromartyr Dometios.

Kontakion in Plagal of the Second Tone

Thou didst rise above earthly things which drag down the mind, thou wast a great guide of monks, O Dometios. Thou didst not fear the furious emperor, who would not honour God. Therefore O Hieromartyr, thou didst die chanting the hymn: God is with me and no one is against me.