Holy Martyr Azes and the 150 Soldiers with Him (284–305)

The holy Martyr Azes and the hundred and fifty soldiers with him suffered in Isauria (Asia Minor) in the reign of the Emperor Diocletian (284–305). Azes was at first a soldier, but then he left military service and went out into the desert to labour. For his holy life the Lord granted him the gift of working miracles and healing. When the persecution of the Christians began, Azes too was arrested by order of the eparch Aquilinus. On the way the saint converted to Christianity the hundred and fifty soldiers sent to seize him, and baptised them in a spring that had miraculously welled up through his own prayer. The newly baptised soldiers wanted to set Saint Azes free, but the Lord’s chosen one made them fulfil the commandment of obedience to earthly authority and bring him to the eparch. At the tribunal the soldiers, together with the blessed Azes, firmly confessed the Christian faith, for which they were all beheaded. Together with them Aquilinus put to death his own wife and daughter, who had been present at Azes’s sufferings and, seeing his steadfastness, had been converted to Christianity.