Holy Martyrs Synclitica and Her Two Daughters (VI)
The holy Martyrs Synclitica and her two daughters were tortured by Dunaan, king of the Arabs, in the sixth century. Synclitica (which means “a senator’s wife”) came of a noble family. She was widowed while still quite young, after which she lived sensibly and in the fear of God and brought up her daughters in faithfulness to the Saviour’s commandments. During the slaughter of the Orthodox of Najran by the lawless Dunaan, Synclitica too was brought before him with her daughters, among other confessors. Struck by their beauty, the tormentor addressed the devout mother: “I have always heard of your good sense. Now your appearance too speaks for the truth of those reports. So, as king and friend, I advise you: act as befits your dignity. Abandon the Nazarene whom you worship, and then you will become the companion of my wife the queen, and your daughters will be brought up like princesses. Everything favours your advancement; only the Christian superstition, the loathsome disease of the senseless mob, stands in the way of your well-being.”
Saint Synclitica, who at every blasphemous word of the lawless man raised her eyes to heaven in trembling, answered the hater of Christ boldly: “O king! You owe honour to Him who gave you your power, your purple and your diadem, who granted you existence and life; before all others you ought to worship Jesus Christ, the Son of God. But you, thankless vessel of grace, so insolently blaspheme your Benefactor. Beware lest the earth swallow you up like Dathan and Abiram. Perishing yourself, you wish to destroy others too, and so you draw still nearer the vengeance of Jesus. You promise me worldly honour, but you labour in vain! O king, I do not even wish your tongue to praise me: the praise of a blasphemer is abominable. First glorify the name of Jesus Christ, and then even your slight praise will be truly a royal favour to me.”
These words filled the godless Dunaan with terrible wrath, and he ordered the mother and her daughters to be led through the streets of the city like criminals. Seeing the saint put to shame, the women wept, but Synclitica comforted them, saying that this shame was more precious to her than any earthly honour.
When the martyr was brought to Dunaan again, the godless man said to her: “If you wish to stay alive, deny Christ!” To which the blessed one replied: “If I deny Him, who will deliver me from eternal death?!” Then, by order of the enraged ruler, Synclitica’s daughters were killed first, and their blood was forced into their mother’s mouth, and then she herself was beheaded.
