Venerable Martyr Domentius the Persian and His Two Disciples (†363) — August 7 / August 20 (Julian Calendar)

On this day, August 7 according to the Julian Calendar (August 20 civil calendar), the Georgian Orthodox Church commemorates Venerable Martyr Domentius the Persian and his two disciples.

The Venerable Martyr Domentius was a Persian by birth and remained faithful to the false religion of his forefathers until, in his youth, a Christian illumined his mind with the light of the teaching of the Gospel. After this the blessed one no longer wished to remain in his homeland, but set out for the border city of Nisibis in Mesopotamia, where he was baptized and entered upon the monastic life in one of the monasteries there.

The grace that rested upon the blessed one aroused the envy of the dwellers of that community, and for this reason Domentius withdrew from them and went to the monastery of Saints Sergius and Bacchus in Theodosiopolis. Here the saint labored under the guidance of a strict ascetic, the Archimandrite Nurvel. When Nurvel beheld the wondrous struggles of Domentius, he ordained him deacon, and afterward desired to appoint him a priest as well; but the saint accounted himself unworthy and withdrew into solitude upon a desolate mountain in Syria.

There the blessed father lived beneath the open sky, and later settled in a cave together with two disciples. Domentius turned many pagans to the law of Christ. Once, through the region where the blessed father and his disciples labored, there passed the Emperor Julian the Apostate (361–363) on his way to make war against the Persians. At his command the soldiers sought out those who were well-pleasing to the Lord; and then, according to one tradition, they stoned them to death, while by another account they walled up the entrance of the cave and buried them alive within (†363).