Hieromartyr Artemon, Presbyter of Laodicea (+303)
The Hieromartyr Artemon of Laodicea (+303) was born in Laodicea of Syria into a Christian family and served in the church from his youth. At sixteen the youth was made a reader, and he laboured in this service for twelve years. For his faithfulness and zeal in the divine services Bishop Sisinius ordained him deacon, and after twenty-eight years of service he was ordained priest. In this rank Saint Artemon preached Christianity among the pagans for thirty-three years. When the Emperor Diocletian (284–305) began the persecution of Christians, Saint Artemon was already old. The emperor issued a decree that all Christians must offer sacrifice to the idols.
Bishop Sisinius learned that the commander Patricius was to come to Laodicea; together with Saint Artemon he stole into the temple of Artemis and smashed the idols, and then gathered his flock in the church and instructed them to stand firm and not to fear the threats of the pagans.
When Patricius arrived in Laodicea he held a five-day festival in honour of the pagan deities, and then wished to offer sacrifice to Artemis as well. When he was told that the temple had been sacked, he, embittered by the devil, decided to sack the Christian church; but before he reached the church a terrible fever seized him, and in his death agony he was carried into the first house. “The Christians have cursed me; their God is punishing me,” he said to his attendants. The prayers offered to the idols did not help the commander; then he sent a runner to Bishop Sisinius and asked for help, promising in return to cast a golden statue of him. The bishop answered: “Thy gold be with thee; if thou wouldst be healed, believe in Christ our Saviour.”
Patricius was afraid of death and declared that he believed in Christ. Through Bishop Sisinius’s prayer the commander was healed, but the miracle did not change his soul: he did not lay hands on the bishop, but set out for the city of Caesarea; on the way he met an old man followed, two by two, by six wild asses and two carts. This was the priest Artemon. To Patricius’s question how he managed to make wild animals so obedient, Saint Artemon answered that everything in this world obeys the name of Christ, and nothing is impossible for God.
Patricius learned that the old man was the Artemon who had sacked the temple of Artemis, and ordered him to be seized. The saint went fearlessly with the soldiers, and ordered the animals to go to Sisinius.
A deer received from God the power of speech and told the bishop what had happened to the holy elder. Sisinius sent a prosphora to Saint Artemon by a deacon.
In Caesarea Patricius tried to force Saint Artemon to offer sacrifice to the idols. In the temple a great many poisonous snakes had their nests. The priests never opened the doors without offering sacrifice. Saint Artemon prayed, fearlessly went into the temple and drove the snakes out of it. The terrified pagans fled, but the saint stopped them, and by breathing on the reptiles destroyed them. The priest Vitalis believed in Christ and asked Saint Artemon to baptise him.
The commander feared that Saint Artemon’s miracles would draw the attention of many people, and ordered him to be put to death. A huge cauldron was filled with boiling pitch to kill Saint Artemon, but two angels in the form of eagles caught up Patricius, who had ridden up to the place of execution, and threw him into the cauldron in place of the venerable father.
Through the prayer of Artemon, miraculously saved from death, a spring gushed up out of the ground, where the saint baptised the priest Vitalis and many other pagans. The next day the newly baptised received from his hand the holy Body and Blood of Christ.
The Bishop of Caesarea visited the place of Saint Artemon’s miracles and later built a church there. Many of the newly baptised were ordained deacons and priests, and Vitalis was made Bishop of Palestine. The Hieromartyr Artemon himself, at God’s call, went to Asia to preach; on the way an angel of the Lord caught him up and set him down in the village of Vulla, where he converted many to the law of Christ. Soon the pagans seized the saint and beheaded him (+303).
