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Holy Martyrs Galaction and Episteme 11/18/2013
They were born in the Phoenician city of Emesa, both of them into pagan families. Galaction’s mother was childless until she received the holy Baptism. Then she brought her husband to the faith and raised her son as a Christian. When he came to the age to get married, his good mother Leucippa departed this world, and his father betrothed him to a maiden called Episteme. Galaction would not marry under any circumstances, so he advised Episteme to receive holy Baptism, and together with him to enter monastic life. They set out for the wilderness and in a place called Pouplion Galaction joined man’s monastery and Episteme women’s. Each of these two proved a true light in the monastic life. They were first in ascesis, first in prayer, in humbleness and obedience, first in love. They never left their monasteries, nor saw each other again except before their death. At that time fierce persecution of the Christians began and they were both captured and brought to trial. Episteme cried for sorrow watching Galaction being beaten. Then her turn came and they beat her, too. The tyrants cut off their arms, their legs, and finally they were beheaded. Eutolmios took their bodies and buried them with veneration. He had been a servant of Episteme’s parents and then he became a fellow ascetic of Galaction in monastic struggles. He later wrote the hagiographies of these Martyrs for Christ, who suffered and were crowned with wreaths of martyrdom in the year 253.
