Holy Martyr Mauricius and Seventy Soldiers: Photinus, Philip, Theodore and Others (+c. 305)

Saint Mauricius was a military commander. He suffered in the time of the Emperor Maximian Galerius (305–311), in 305, together with his son Photinus and seventy soldiers of his army (the names of only two of them are known, Theodore and Philip).

During the persecution pagan priests reported to the emperor that Mauricius was spreading the faith of Christ. Standing before the tribunal with his son and soldiers, the saint courageously confessed Christ. Neither flattery nor threats could bend the martyrs. Then they were handed over to cruel torments; the young Photinus was beheaded before his father’s eyes, but this trial could not shake Saint Mauricius: he gave thanks to the Lord for his son’s martyrdom.

The tormentors resorted to a more refined torture: they took the courageous confessors of Christ out to a marshy place swarming with mosquitoes, flies and hornets, smeared their bodies with honey and tied them to trees. Here the saints suffered both from the insect bites and from hunger and thirst, but they glorified the Lord without ceasing. After ten days the martyrs of Christ were beheaded. The wrathful ruler gave orders for their bodies to be left unburied, but the Christians secretly buried them at night at the place of their terrible end.