5 February 2025 (MIA)

Macedonian Orthodox Church Calendar

The Hieromartyr Clement, Bishop of Ancyra

He was born in 258 in the town of Ancyra of a pagan father and a Christian mother. His devout mother, Euphrosyne, prophesied a martyr’s death for her son, and left this world when Clement was twelve years old. Clement became so famed for his virtuous life that he was chosen as bishop of Ancyra at the age of twenty. He acquired a mature wisdom in his early years, and harnessed and conquered his body by great restraint. In the reign of Diocletian, he was tortured as terribly `as anyone has ever been since the foundation of the world’. He spent twenty-eight years under torture and imprisonment. He was healed of these wounds, and was finally beheaded by a soldier in 312, while he was presiding at the Liturgy as bishop in the church in Ancyra. St Clement’s miracles are without number.

Catholic Calendar

St. Agatha, Virgin and Martyr

she received the crown of martyrdom at Catana, in the persecution of Decius, in the third consulship of that prince, in the year of our Lord 251. She was of a rich and illustrious family, and having been consecrated to God from her tender years, triumphed over many assaults upon her chastity. Quintianus, a man of consular dignity, bent on gratifying both his lust and avarice, imagined he should easily compass his wicked designs on Agatha’s person and estate by means of the emperor’s edict against the Christians. Quintianus gave orders for her being put into the hands of Aphrodisia, a most wicked woman, who, with six daughters, all prostitutes. The saint suffered in this infamous place assaults and stratagems against her virtue infinitely more terrible to her than any tortures or death itself. After suffering many tortures, she sweetly gave up the ghost.