Holy Martyrs Synkletike and Her Two Daughters (6th Century) — October 24 / November 6 (Julian Calendar)

On this day, October 24 according to the Julian Calendar (November 6 civil calendar), the Georgian Orthodox Church commemorates Holy Martyrs Synkletike and Her Two Daughters (6th Century).

The holy martyrs Synkletike and her two daughters were tortured by the Arab king Dunaan in the sixth century. Synkletike (the name means “wife of a senator”) came from a noble family. She was widowed very young, after which she lived prudently and piously and raised her daughters in fidelity to the commandments of the Savior.

During Dunaan’s slaughter of the faithful of Najran, Synkletike was brought before the lawless king along with other confessors, together with her daughters. Amazed at their beauty, the tormentor addressed the virtuous mother: “I have always heard of your wisdom, and now your appearance too bears witness to the truth of those reports. So, as king and friend, I counsel you: act in a manner worthy of your dignity. Abandon the Nazarene whom you worship, and you will become a friend of my wife, the queen, and your daughters will be raised like princesses. Everything favors your advancement; only the Christian superstition, the loathsome and foolish sickness of the mob, stands in the way of your prosperity.”

Saint Synkletike, who had been raising her eyes to heaven in horror at every blasphemous word of the lawless one, boldly answered the enemy of Christ: “O king! You owe honor to the One who gave you authority, the purple and the diadem, who bestowed on you being and life; above all you ought to worship Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Yet you, ungrateful vessel of grace, so shamelessly blaspheme your benefactor. Beware lest the earth swallow you up like Dathan and Abiram. Perishing yourself, you wish the destruction of others too, and so you bring nearer the vengeance of Jesus. You promise me worldly honor, but you labor in vain! O king, I do not even wish your tongue to praise me: the praise of a blasphemer is abhorrent. First glorify the name of Jesus Christ, and then even your slightest praise will be for me a truly royal favor.”

These words filled the godless Dunaan with terrible wrath, and he ordered the mother and her daughters to be paraded through the city streets like criminals. Seeing the humiliation of the saint, the women wept, but Synkletike comforted them: this insult is more precious to me than any earthly honor.

When the martyr was brought before Dunaan again, the godless one said to her: “If you wish to live, deny Christ!” The blessed woman answered: “If I deny Him, who will save me from eternal death?!” Then, by order of the enraged ruler, the daughters of Synkletike were killed first, and their blood was forcibly poured into their mother’s mouth; then she herself was beheaded.