Holy Martyrs Eustochius, Gaius, Probus, Lollius, Urban and Others (IV)

The holy Martyrs Eustochius, Gaius, Probus, Lollius and Urban suffered in the reign of the lawless Emperor Maximian (286–310), when the Christians were cruelly persecuted.

Saint Eustochius was a pagan priest, but, having witnessed the wonderful courage of the martyrs of Christ and the miracles they worked, he believed in Christ. Eudoxius, Bishop of Antioch, baptised the former priest and ordained him presbyter. In the city of Lystra Eustochius converted to Orthodoxy his near kinsman Gaius and all his household, among them the boys Probus, Lollius and Urban. The emperor’s soldiers seized the saint and brought him before the tribunal. Torments could not bend the blessed confessor, and so he was sent, together with Gaius’s newly converted family, to the governor Agrippinus in the Galatian city of Ancyra. Here the tormentors savagely tortured them all, women and children included, after which the martyrs of Christ were beheaded.