Today, Friday (13.12.2024), according to calendar the memory of Agios Eustratios Auxentios Eugenios Mardarios and Orestes martyrs, Agios Ares the wise, Agios Juvenalios and Agia Lucia the virgin is commemorated.
The names celebrating today, according to the calendar, are the following:
- Mars*
- Efstratios, Efstratis, Stratis, Stratos, Efstratas, Stratas, Efstratia, Stratoula, Strata, Efstratoula
- Auxentios, Auxentis, Auxentia, Auxentoula*
- Eugene, Eugene*
- Mardarios, Mardaris, Mardas
- Orestes, Orestias, Orestia, Orestiada*
- Juvenalius, Juvenalis, Juvenalis, Juvenalia*
- Loukas, Loukia, Lukitsa*
Saints Eustratios, Auxentios, Eugenios, Mardarios and Orestes
Saints Eustratios, Auxentios, Eugenios, Mardarios and Orestes were martyred during the cruel persecution of Christians under Diocletian.
Eustratius, who was a senior officer, was captured by Duke Lysias. He, after torturing him in the most horrible manner, then sent him to the prefect Agricola. Famous for his brutality towards the Christians, he made Eustratius march in iron shoes, which had pointed nails in them. Then he fashioned it, after throwing it into the fire.
Auxentius, who was a priest and fellow citizen of Efstratius, the ruler forced him to convert with many tempting promises. But the worthy minister of Christ answered: “There is no need for me to say many words, Lysias. In this life I am Christ’s and I will be His until death. And if you give me innumerable blows and wounds, and if you melt me with fire and iron, my Christ is all-powerful and His Cross irresistible. Auxentius himself is weak. But you will never bend the mind of the Christian Auxentios”.
Enraged by the answer, the ruler immediately beheaded him. Mardarios, after piercing his ankles, hung him upside down and burned him.
Officer Eugene, after having his tongue and hands cut off and his legs broken, expired. And the soldier Orestes was killed, after he was laid on an incandescent bed.
Saint Lucia the Virgin
Saint Lucia came from Syracuse, Sicily and was martyred in the year 304 AD. when Pashasios was ruler of Sicily and Diocletian was emperor of Rome. She was a virgin, betrothed to some heathen.
Saint Lucia distributed her wealth to the poor and prayed for her end according to the words of Saint Agatha.
Her insistence on the original faith and her general attitude was the reason her suitor moved against her. He did not even hesitate to denounce her to the ruler Pashasios as a Christian. After his interrogation, he ordered her to be locked up in a brothel to humiliate her. And yet a divine power kept her motionless where she was, although at first the soldiers pulled her with a rush, and then they tied her to a yoke drawn by several pairs of oxen.
The soldiers, angry that they did not achieve their goal, anointed her with tar, resin and oil and set her on fire to burn her alive; and yet, it was divine intervention that extinguished the fire.
Then they gouged out her eyes with a saber and a soldier plunged his knife into her throat and left her bleeding. The Saint asked to partake of the Immaculate Mysteries and thus provided, she surrendered her soul to the Lord after having previously prophesied about the short end of idolatry and the victory and predominance of Christianity.
* There are other dates this name celebrates.