Holy Hieromartyr Lucian, priest of the Church of Antioch 10/28/2013
He was born of noble parents from the Syrian city of Samosata. In his youth he gained a wide worldly and spiritual education. He was renowned for his erudition and for his ascetic restrain in life. Having distributed his possessions to the poor, he made his living with his didactic works, that provided him food as if handiwork. He did a great service to the Church correcting the text of the Holy Scriptures corresponding to the Hebrew text, as the heretics had to some extent altered the text to suit their distorted teaching. For his learning and spirituality he was consecrated priest of the Church in Antioch. At the time of Magician's persecutions, when Saint Anthimus of Nicomedia and Saint Peter of Alexandria were tortured, Lucian was also on the list of the ones that the Emperor wanted executed. He left the city to shelter himself, but an envious heretic priest called Pancratius informed the persecutors of his whereabouts. The persecution was outrageous at the time. Not even young children were spared. Two young boys that refused to eat of the sacrifices offered to the idols were thrown into boiling water where in agony they surrendered their souls to God. A girl called Pelagia, one of Lucius' students, in order to preserve her virginity undefiled, went on top of the house and leaped from there in death (8 October). Lucian was taken to Nicomedia and brought before the Emperor. On his way there with his counsels he converted forty soldiers to the faith in Christ. All of them ended in martyrdom. After his examination and beating, he was thrown into prison to be left to die of hunger and thirst. Saint John Chrysostom would write:" He despised hunger, so let us also come to despise luxury and overthrow the authority of our stomachs, so that when the time arrives for such bravery to be required from us, we could be able, having been prepared by minor struggles, to win the battle gloriously." On the feast of Theophany he partook of the Holy Mysteries in prison, and the following day he committed his spirit to God. He suffered on January 7, in the year 311.
