Hieromartyr Dorotheus, Bishop of Tyre (+c. 362)

The holy Hieromartyr Dorotheus (+c. 362) was Bishop of Tyre in the time of the Emperor Diocletian (284–305). According to the Gospel counsel, “when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another” (Matt. 10:23), he left Tyre and escaped his tormentors. In the reign of Constantine the Great (306–337, commemorated 21 May) he returned to his episcopal see and for more than fifty years governed his flock faithfully. When the persecution of Christians was renewed under Julian the Apostate (361–363), Saint Dorotheus was already more than a hundred years old. He left the city of Tyre again and made for the Moesian city of Odyssopolis (present-day Varna). There the king’s officials seized him and demanded that he offer sacrifice to the idols. The saint refused. Then the tormentors tried to bend the aged confessor with torments. The saint died under torture (+c. 362).