June 2 / May 20
1The Holy Martyr Thalelaeus and his companions Alexander and Asterius, at Aegae in Cilicia (284)
Thalelaeus was born in Lebanon. His father was called Berucius and his mother Romila. Thalelaeus was an eighteen-year-old youth: handsome, tall, and with reddish-blonde hair. He was a physician by profession. He suffered for Christ during the reign of Numerian. When he bravely confessed his faith in Christ the Lord before his judge-torturer, the judge ordered the two executioners, Alexander and Asterius, to bore through his knees with a drill, to thread a rope through the perforated bones, and to hang him from a tree. But God, through an invisible power, took away the sight of the executioners. In place of Thalelaeus, they bored through a board and hung it from a tree. When the judge-torturer found out, he thought that the executioners had done this intentionally, and he ordered them both flogged. Then Alexander and Asterius cried out in the midst of their flogging: “The Lord is alive to us, and from now on we will also be Chris- tians. We believe in Christ and suffer for Him.” Upon hearing this, the judge-torturer ordered that both be beheaded. Then the judge took the drill to bore the knees of Thalelaeus himself, but his hands became paralyzed and he begged Thalelaeus to save him. This the innocent martyr of Christ did, with the help of prayer. Afterward, Thalelaeus was thrown into the water but then appeared alive before his tormentor (for Thalelaeus had prayed to God inwardly to prolong his sufferings so that he would not die immediately). When he was thrown to wild beasts, they licked his feet and were amicable toward him. Finally, Thalelaeus was beheaded and took up his habitation in life eternal in the year 284.
The Holy Martyr Asclas of Egypt (287)
Asclas suffered in the town of Antinoe in Egypt during the reign of Diocletian. He was flogged, scraped and burned with candles, but he re- remained unwavering in the Faith to the end. When the tormentor Arrian was crossing the Nile by boat, Asclas, through prayer, stopped the boat in the middle of the river and would not allow it to move until Arrian wrote that he believed in Christ as the One and Almighty God. But ascribing this miracle to a magical skill of Asclas, the tormentor forgot what he wrote and continued to torment the man of God. Finally, they tied a stone around his neck and cast him into the Nile River. On the third day, Christians found the body of Asclas along the shore with the stone around his neck (as the martyr foretold to them before his death) and honorably buried him, in the year 287. Leonides, the holy martyr, also suffered with him. Arrian, their tormentor, later repented, believed in Christ with his whole heart and openly began to express his faith before the pagans. The pagans also killed him, and thus Arrian—a former tormentor of Christians—was made wor- thy of the martyr’s wreath for Christ.
The Venerable Stefan of Piperi (1697)
This saint was born into the Nikšić clan in the village of Župa of poor but devout parents, Radoje and Jaćima. According to tradition, he first lived a life of asceticism in the Monastery of Morača, where he was abbot. The Turks drove him out of Morača, so he settled in Rovački, Turmanj, in the place which today is called Ćelište. Later he settled in a cell in Piperi, where he remained in labor and God-pleasing asceti- cism until his death. He reposed peacefully in the Lord on May 20, 1697. His relics repose there even today, and with many miracles, they glorify Christ God and Stefan, the saint of God.
- Zabulon and Susanna, of Cappadocia and Jerusalem (4th c.), parents of St. Nina (Nino), enlightener of Georgia.
- Austregisilus, bishop of Bourges (624).
- Thalassius the Myrrh-gusher, of Libya (ca. 668).
- Martyr Ethelbert, king of East Anglia (ca. 793).
- Nicetas, John, and Joseph, monks of Nea Moni on Chios (11th c.).
- Dovmont-Timothy, prince of Pskov (1299).
- Uncovering of the relics (1431) of Alexis, metropolitan of Moscow (1378).
- New Martyr Olympiada (Verbetskaya), abbess of Kozelshchinsk Convent (Poltava) (1938).
HYMN OF PRAISE
The Holy Martyr Thalelaeus
Attend, O men and angels—
In suffering and at the moment of death
Thalelaeus prayed to God:
“O Lord, Creator of the world,
Thine is the mercy,
Thine is the vengeance!
To Thee I pray:
Prolong my life,
That for Thee I may endure more pain.
In truth, little have I endured
In order to merit Thy Kingdom.
Horrible were Thy sufferings on Golgotha,
Horrible sufferings were endured by Thee, Sinless One!
For sinners, they should be more horrible,
That, being tortured, they may be cleansed
And worthily receive salvation.”
That which the most wonderful Thalelaeus prayed for
Was granted him by God.
His petitions were precious;
God permitted him abundant sufferings.
To the end, Thalelaeus endured all,
All, with joy and with thanksgiving
From suffering to suffering he went,
As from celebration to an even greater celebration.
Thus, the saint glorifies Orthodoxy!
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