Holy Martyr Eusignius of Antioch (†362) — August 5 / August 18 (Julian Calendar)

On this day, August 5 according to the Julian Calendar (August 18 on the civil calendar), the Georgian Orthodox Church commemorates the Holy Martyr Eusignius.

The Holy Martyr Eusignius was born in Antioch in the middle of the third century. For six decades he served in the armies of the Roman emperors Diocletian, Maximian Herculius, Constantius Chlorus, Constantine the Great, and his sons. At the beginning of the reign of Constantine the Great (306–337), Eusignius saw with his own eyes the appearance in the heavens of the radiant Cross that heralded victory.

In his old age the saint left military service and returned to his homeland, where he passed his days in prayer and fasting. Meanwhile Julian the Apostate ascended the throne and strove to restore the pagan religion throughout the empire. Denounced by a certain man of Antioch, Saint Eusignius was seized and brought before the emperor’s tribunal for confessing Christ. The blessed one fearlessly rebuked the wrathful autocrat for his denial of the Savior, set before him the example of his own kinsman Constantine the Great, and, as an eyewitness, recounted in detail the miraculous appearance of the sign of the Cross in the sky. Julian had the old man, who had reached one hundred and ten years, beheaded (†362).