March 5 / February 20

Saint Leo, Bishop of Catania in Sicily (ca. 780)

In the town of Catania, below the volcanic Mount Etna, lived St. Leo, a good shepherd and compassionate teacher of the people. He had great concern for the sick and the poor. His zeal for the Faith was as great as his charity toward the less fortunate. A magician named Heliodorus appeared in Catania and deluded the people with various illusions, greatly demoralizing the youth of the town. At one time during the divine services, Heliodorus entered the church of God and began his obscenities. St. Leo approached him, tied him to one end of his pallium, and led him to the marketplace of the city. Here Leo ordered that a large fire be built. When it was raging, he stood in the middle of the blaze and pulled Heliodorus into the fire. Heliodorus was completely consumed, but Leo remained alive and unscathed. All who had been bewitched by Heliodorus and who had looked upon him as someone divine, were ashamed. The compassionate and zealous Leo was proclaimed throughout the entire kingdom as a great miracle-worker, who helped men by his shining miracles. When Leo ended his course, he took up his habitation with the Lord, and from his relics there flowed healing myrrh. He reposed in the eighth century.

The Holy Hieromartyr Sadoc (Sadoth), bishop of Persia, and 128 Martyrs with him (342)

Sadoc was bishop in Persia after St. Simeon. Once St. Simeon appeared to him in a dream and said: “Yesterday, me—today, you!” Sadoc interpreted these words to his flock as meaning: Last year I [St. Simeon] suffered, this year you [Sadoc] will suffer. Indeed, that year King Sapor arrested him with many of the clergy and people and brought them to trial. Sapor first ordered them to worship fire and the sun as divinities. Sadoc replied: “We are eagerly prepared to die for our God, but we can worship neither the sun nor fire.” After that, they were tortured and sentenced to death by beheading. Before being beheaded, Sadoc sent up a prayer to God: “Wash us from our sins, O Lord, in our blood!” Sadoc and his priests and faithful gloriously gave up their bodies to death and their souls to the Immortal God. They suffered in the year 342 or 344.

• Hieromartyr Eleutherius, bishop in Byzantium (2nd ).
• Eleutherius, bishop of Tournai (531).
• Agatho, pope of Rome (682).
• Eucherius, bishop of Orleans (ca. 740).
• Yaroslav the Wise, great prince of Kiev (1054).
• Agatho, wonderworker of the Kiev Caves (13th-14th c.).
• Hieromartyr Cornelius, abbot of the Pskov Caves Monastery, and his disciple Bassian of Murom (1570).
• Abbot Macarius and 34 monks and novices of Valaam Monastery martyred by the Lutherans (1578)
• (Greek : St. Bessarion the Great, wonderworker of Egypt [466]. St. Cindeus, bishop of Pisidia).

HYMN OF PRAISE

Saint Sadok

What is the sun? The eye that does not see.
What is fire?
A servant without reason.
King Sapor spoke to Sadok:
“Worship the sun and the flame,
The gods which rule the world,
According to the teaching of Zoroaster the wise.”
Sadok gently replied to the emperor:
“To you, O Emperor, be health and joy,
But where does the sensible bow down before the senseless?
Where does the rational bow down before the irrational?
The sun—beautiful as a thing of God,
The flame—wonderful as a servant of men;
But can the created replace the Creator?
Can the dead be a replacement for the living?
Is the painting better than the artist?
Is the plow more precious than the plower?
In the heavens, O Emperor, there is only one God,
Omnipotent, intelligent, beautiful and good,
The Creator of the visible and invisible world,
The Designer of everything created.
He is the Giver of all good gifts,
A Lover of mankind and the Almighty.
The Only-begotten Son revealed Him.
He saved us from the Persian errors,
He taught us to stand on top of nature,
And to turn our face toward the Creator
To lift up our entire soul to heaven—
There, where our homeland is,
The homeland of angels and men.”
Thus spoke Sadok—and Sapor beheaded him.

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