Holy Martyrs Faith, Hope and Love and Their Mother Sophia (†c. 137) — September 17 / September 30 (Julian Calendar)

On this day, September 17 according to the Julian Calendar (September 30 civil calendar), the Georgian Orthodox Church commemorates the Holy Martyrs Faith, Hope and Love and their mother Sophia.

The pious widow Saint Sophia lived in Italy and raised her daughters in faithfulness to the commandments of Christ, naming them after the three Christian virtues: Pistis (Faith), Elpis (Hope) and Agape (Love). During the persecution of the Orthodox under Emperor Hadrian (117–138), the mother and her daughters held firmly to their faith and confessed it openly before all. Antiochus, the governor of the city, reported this to the godless ruler, who, filled with bestial rage, ordered that the confessors be brought to Rome without delay. The brides of Christ were filled with joy, gave thanks to the Lord, and asked Him to grant them the strength to endure torments. When the saints stood before the emperor, their calm astonished everyone: one would have thought they had been summoned not to martyrdom but to a splendid feast. Hadrian demanded that the martyrs worship the idol of Artemis. Sophia answered for them all: we have come here to Rome “that we may defend our faith even unto death.” The lawless one gave them three days to consider their final answer; then he summoned the daughters separately, urged them with flattery to take pity on the mother who had raised them, and repeated his earlier demand. The girls answered firmly: “What is sweeter for a Christian than to suffer for Christ!” After this the tyrant separated the sisters from one another, hoping at least in this way to weaken the blessed ones, but he achieved nothing.

The eldest, twelve-year-old Faith, was tortured first. The lawless men stripped her of her clothing, bound her hands behind her back, beat her cruelly, and then cut off her breasts. Milk rather than blood flowed from the wounds, but even this miracle did not bring the tyrant to his senses: he ordered her wounds to be seared with red-hot tiles. Faith was then set in a pan full of pitch and fat placed over the fire, but the flames lost their heat and the bride of Christ was not harmed at all. At last it was decided to behead her.

Next the middle sister, ten-year-old Hope, was tortured. She too was stripped, beaten with dried sinews and cast into the fire; when she survived unharmed, she was hung upon a stake and torn with iron hooks, and then placed in a cauldron full of boiling pitch. But the cauldron melted like wax, the boiling liquid spilled out and burned many of those gathered around, while the holy martyr was preserved. Finally she too was put to the sword.

Then came the turn of the youngest, nine-year-old Love. She was beaten so savagely that her limbs were torn loose from their joints. The godless judge promised the tortured girl that if she would only say with her lips that “Artemis is great,” she would be spared from the fire. But the child waited neither for the executioners nor for the tyrant’s order — she went eagerly into the furnace and stood in the midst of it. The angels of the Lord protected the child from burning. The enraged pagans pierced the thighs of the blessed one with iron augers, and at last beheaded her.

The cruelest martyrdom fell to Sophia: with her own eyes she watched the sufferings of her children, yet no faintheartedness or maternal fear overcame her. The wondrous mother of wondrous daughters strengthened the martyrs by word and prayer; afterward she laid their bodies in a coffin, carried them by cart to her native city, and buried them in a church she herself had built. For three days the blessed woman did not leave the holy graves, and then the Lord received her soul as well (†c. 137).