about time you did, comrade, we will never forget your works nor love, your memory will be eternal between all of us, "for the righteous shall never see death"
one more that leaves the nightmare, one more that sees the light, shame to have lost a legend, but love to see him fly🫡
🔸 July 7 - Saint Kyriaki of Nicomedia 🔸
Today, we commemorate the Great-Martyr Saint Kyriaki of Nicomedia. She suffered for Christ during the persecutions of the emperor Diocletian (284-305). St Kyriaki was born in the city of Nicomedia (today Izmit, Turkey) to pious Christian parents Dorotheos and Eusebia on a Sunday, and so she was given the name Kyriaki (‘Sunday’ in Greek). The young Kyriaki was modest and wise beyond her age.
Uninterested in worldly exploits, she desired to preserve her virginity, and nourished her soul with the virtues of fasting and prayer. One day, a wealthy magistrate, captured by the wealth and beauty of Kyriaki, sought to betroth her to his son. Kyriaki denied the magistrate’s offer, declaring that she had already betrothed herself to Christ. The infuriated magistrate went to the emperor Diocletian and falsely accused Kyriaki of mocking the pagan gods.
Diocletian sent soldiers to arrest Kyriaki and her parents. Dorotheus and Eusebia confessed their faith before the emperor who sent them to be savagely tortured and beheaded. Kyriaki was sent to be interrogated by Maximian, Diocletian’s son in law. Marveling at her beauty, Maximian tried to persuade her through flattery to abandon her faith, and to venerate the pagan idols. Kyriaki refused, and told Maximian that nothing could separate her from Christ.
St Kyriaki was brutally lashed with whips, but this only strengthened her faith. The humiliated Maximian, unable to break the Saint, sent her to Hilarion, the brutal eparch of Bithynia. Hilarion had Kyriaki suspended by her hair, and burned with torches of fire, but Christ appeared to her and healed her wounds. When Hilarion saw that she was healed, he urged her to go to the temple and thank the pagan gods.
Hilarion thought he had defeated Kyriaki by bringing her to the temple, but St Kyriaki prayed to Christ, and an earthquake shattered the idols. Instead of accepting the power of Christ, Hilarion blasphemed against the Lord, and was struck by lightning and died. Hilarion’s successor, Apollonius, threw Kyriaki to hungry lions, but they lay tame at her feet. Finally, the 21 year old St Kyriaki was beheaded in 289.