Autonomus, Bishop in Italy

Autonomus was a bishop in Italy during the persecution of Diocletian, who fled Italy at the outbreak of the persecution and crossed the Adriatic to Bithynia in northwestern Asia Minor. He settled in the small village of Soreoi near the city of Prymnesos and there found a congregation of Christians who had been scattered by the local pagans. Autonomus organized them, built a small church, and consecrated several of his disciples as presbyters and deacons to serve the surrounding region.

For a number of years he labored quietly at Soreoi without attracting imperial attention, the great storms of the persecution having passed him by in the West. The synaxarion records that he was killed not by Roman officials but by a band of local pagans, angry at the demolition of one of their wayside shrines by his converts, who burst into the church during the celebration of the Liturgy and stabbed Autonomus at the altar.

His relics were preserved at Soreoi and venerated for centuries; the village became a place of pilgrimage. His feast falls on September 12.