Martyrs Ananias the Presbyter, Peter the Jailer, and Seven Soldiers with Them (+295)

The holy Martyrs Ananias the presbyter, Peter the jailer, and seven soldiers with them suffered in Phoenicia in 295. The presbyter Ananias was seized for confessing Christ during the persecution under Diocletian and brought to Maximus, the governor of Phoenicia. Neither exhortations nor threats could turn the saint away from the worship of the true God. When he was ordered to offer sacrifice to the idols, he breathed upon the whole pagan temple and shattered it, and publicly exposed the false faith of the idol-worshippers. After this he was shut up in prison, where on the seventh day he was counted worthy of an appearance of the Saviour, and on the twelfth day the Holy Spirit Himself appeared to him in the form of a dove. The prison guard Peter, who witnessed these miracles, believed in Christ too, for which he shared Ananias’s lot: both confessors were brought out together to be tortured. Ananias was laid on a red-hot pan, his body was hacked and salt was put into his wounds, while Peter was thrown into glowing embers. Then both martyrs were locked in an overheated bath-house, but three days later they came out of it unharmed. The miracle that had taken place converted seven more soldiers to the law of Christ. The embittered pagans beat them with staves, and then threw all nine martyrs into a fire. To those whom the lawless had condemned to death the Holy Spirit again appeared in the form of a dove, and took away the flames’ power to burn. After this the godless threw Ananias to wild beasts to be torn to pieces, but again he survived. Then the martyrs were drowned in the sea; before his death the presbyter Ananias managed to baptise the newly converted soldiers. The bodies of the saints, cast up on the shore, were committed to the earth with honour by the Christians.