saint
Martyrs Hermylas and Stratonicus
A deacon and his soldier-friend in Belgrade who under Licinius were subjected to water ordeals and flogging; their mutual courage in each other's sight only deepened their resolve, and both were finally sewn into a net and cast into the Danube.
Life
Hermylas was a deacon of the church at Singidunum (modern Belgrade) in the Roman province of Upper Moesia, and Stratonicus was a soldier of the same city who was his close friend. During the persecution of Licinius in 315, Hermylas was arrested at the church and brought before the governor for examination; Stratonicus, watching the torments at the public hearing, was so overcome by his friend's constancy that he confessed Christ on the spot and was at once added to the prisoner's case.
The two were tortured at intervals over a period of three days — beaten, hung from the rack, exposed to wild beasts that refused to touch them. By the synaxarion's account, the spectacle of their endurance under torments tested both of them in turn but also encouraged each through the other's witness. At the end of the third day, the governor ordered them sewn together into a great net and cast into the Danube.
Their bodies, by the synaxarion's account, washed ashore three days later on the same bank, where Christians of the city recovered them and buried them with honor. The shrine became the principal pilgrimage site of Belgrade in subsequent centuries. Their joint feast falls on January 13.
Traditions
Feast day
January 13
Topics
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