The Church celebrates the memory of Hieromartyr Athenogenes and his ten disciples, as well as the memory of Martyr Antiochus of Sebaste, the brother of Martyr Platon, who was a physician and was martyred at the end of the 3rd century AD.
Hieromartyr Athenogenes came from Sebastea in Cappadocia and lived during the reign of Emperor Diocletian.
Thanks to being a highly educated and virtuous man, and practising the virtue of humiliation, he came to join the sacred clergy. He became Bishop of Pidachthoa.
As a bishop, he was distinguished for his love of God and man, for his great philanthropic work and his zealous zeal, with which he worked for the spread of the Gospel as well as the service of both his spiritual diligence and his prosperity and social progress. of his flock.
During the persecution of Diocletian, together with ten of his disciples, Riginos, Maximinus, Patrophilus, Athenogenes, Antiochus, Ammon, Theophrastus, Cleon, Peter and Isichius, he was arrested by the ruler Philimarch, and all were subjected to horrible tortures, resisted vigorously and confessed Christ.
In the end, both the teacher and his disciples were beheaded, suffering for their faith in Jesus Christ, the sole true God.
Source: Church of Cyprus