Martyr 4th century

Martyrs Marcian Nicander, and Companions of Egypt

Also known as Marcian · Nicander · Hyperechius · Apollonius · Leonidas · Arius · Gorgias · Pambo · Selenia · Irene

A company of Egyptian Christians, among them two women, who confessed Christ under Maximian and were tortured and put to death for the faith.

Feast Day

June 5

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Commemorated as

The Holy Martyrs Marcian, Nicander, and their Companions of Egypt

Life

Marcian, Nicander, Hyperechius, Apollonius, Leonidas, Arius, Gorgias, Pambo, Selenia, and Irene were a company of ten Egyptian Christians who were put to death for their faith during the persecution under the emperor Maximian (305-311). Of the ten, eight were men and two, Selenia and Irene, were women; they are commemorated together as a single company on June 5.

The surviving account is brief. The synaxarion records that for their steadfast confession of Christ the martyrs were scourged, then cast barely alive into prison, where they died of hunger and thirst. Beyond this outline the sources preserve no individual biographies, no precise year, and no named Egyptian locality.

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Martyrdom

According to the synaxarion, the ten were natives of Egypt who suffered during the reign of Maximian, one of the emperors associated with the last and most severe wave of Roman persecution of Christians. For refusing to renounce their faith they were subjected to a fierce scourging.

Left near death, they were thrown into prison. The account relates that an angel appeared to them there and healed their wounds, after which the martyrs died in confinement from hunger and thirst. They are venerated as a single named group rather than through separate individual vitae.

Notes

Named group commemorated as one.

Sources: OCA Synaxarion (oca.org), Lives of the Saints