Hieromartyr Athanasius, Bishop of Tarsus; Venerable Anthusa; and Her Servants, the Martyrs Charisimus and Neophytus — August 22 / September 4 (Julian Calendar)

On this day, August 22 according to the Julian Calendar (September 4 civil calendar), the Georgian Orthodox Church commemorates the Hieromartyr Athanasius, Bishop of Tarsus (†270–275); the Venerable Anthusa (†c. 298); and her servants, the Holy Martyrs Charisimus and Neophytus (3rd century). The Hieromartyr Athanasius, Bishop of Tarsus in Cilicia, who baptized the Venerable Anthusa, was beheaded during the reign of the Emperor Aurelian (270–275). Anthusa was the daughter of noble pagans living in the Syrian city of Seleucia. When she came to know the teaching of Christ, she traveled, under the pretext of visiting her nurse, to the hierarch Athanasius and was baptized. Her parents were greatly enraged at their daughter’s conversion to Christianity.

The blessed Anthusa was then tonsured a nun by the hand of Saint Athanasius and withdrew into the desert to labor in asceticism. There the handmaid of Christ struggled for twenty-three years and at last, toward the end of the third century, peacefully surrendered her soul to the Lord. Together with the Venerable Anthusa, her servants Charisimus and Neophytus were also baptized, and they ended their lives as martyrs.