Martyrs Galaction and Episteme

Galaction was born around the year 240 in the Phoenician city of Emesa to elderly parents who had received a son only after long prayers and the visits of a holy hermit named Onuphrius (a namesake of the great desert father). He was baptized in his infancy and raised in the faith. Episteme was a young Christian of the same city whom his parents had chosen as his bride.

On their wedding night the synaxarion records that Galaction and Episteme made an agreement together — by Galaction's persuasion — to live as brother and sister rather than as husband and wife, dedicating their lives to ascetic prayer. They lived in this way for some years until the deaths of their parents released them; then they parted to enter separate monastic communities, Galaction at the monastery of Publius on Mount Publius near Emesa and Episteme at a nearby convent.

During the persecution of Decius (around 251) the monastery of Publius was raided. Galaction was arrested and brought to the local prefect. Episteme, learning of his imprisonment, asked her abbess for permission to join him, and walked to the prison to share his torments. They were tortured together — beaten, their tongues cut out — and beheaded together at the same hour. Their joint feast falls on November 5.