21 September / 4 October

The Holy Apostle Codratus

One of the Seventy, he was a disciple of the Great Apostles. He preached the Gospel in Athens, and was at first bishop in Athens after St Publius, and then in the city of Magnesia. He was very learned in the secular disciplines and rich with the grace of the Holy Spirit. His biographer says of him: 'He was as a morning star among clouds', the clouds being the darkness of Hellenic paganism, lacking the light of devotion, and the holy Apostle Codratus shone to them— the Hellenes—as a great light, illumining the darkness, casting down the foul sacrifices and destroying demonic temples by his prayers. But darkness always hates the light, and the pagans hated holy Codratus. They first stoned him, as the Jews had earlier stoned St Stephen, and then imprisoned him, leaving him without bread until his holy soul left his body and entered into the Kingdom of Christ his God. St Codratus wrote a defence of Christianity and gave it to the Emperor Hadrian. This defence acted so strongly upon the pagan Emperor that he decreed that Christians should not be persecuted without special cause. Holy Codratus suffered in about 130. He was buried in Magnesia, the place of his passion. The Hieromartyr Hypatius, Bishop of Ephesus, and Andrew the Priest.

On the same day: St Dimitri, Bishop of Rostov; Martyr Metropolitan Theophan (Tuliakov) of Nizhni- Novgorod (1937)