died c. 302-303
A company of the court and clergy of Nicomedia martyred with St. Anthimus under Diocletian (302)
The Holy Martyrs of Nicomedia: Theophilus the Deacon and Those With Him
The Martyrs of Nicomedia commemorated on September 3 are a company of clergy, court officials, and lay Christians who suffered at Nicomedia, the eastern capital of the Roman Empire, during the persecution under the emperors Diocletian and Maximian. They are commemorated together with the Hieromartyr Anthimus, bishop of the city, whose ministry and martyrdom the synaxarion connects with their own. The persecution intensified after a fire at the imperial court in Nicomedia, which the pagans blamed on the Christians.
The synaxarion names among them Theophilus the Deacon, Dorotheus, Mardonius, Migdonius, Peter, Indes, Gorgonius, Zeno, the virgin Domna, and Euthymius. They held varied stations -- some were clergy, some were officials and soldiers of the court, and some were converts from paganism -- and according to the accounts they were put to death by a range of means, including beheading, burning, burial alive, and drowning.
Their commemoration is bound up with the larger tradition of the great multitude of Christians of Nicomedia, numbered by the synaxarion at about twenty thousand, who were burned within a church in the city. The events are dated to the early years of the fourth century, around 302-303, during the height of the Diocletianic persecution.
Theophilus served as a deacon and was entrusted with carrying a letter of Bishop Anthimus, who had withdrawn to a nearby village and continued to encourage the Christians of Nicomedia through correspondence. The letter was intercepted, and Theophilus was seized and tortured in an effort to learn the bishop's whereabouts. According to the account, he endured the torments without disclosing where Anthimus was hidden, and died under torture.
Domna is described as a former pagan priestess who came to faith in Christ after reading the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of the Apostle Paul. The tradition relates that she distributed wealth to the poor, withdrew from the imperial court, and was put to death for her care in venerating and burying the bodies of the martyrs. Euthymius is remembered for a similar concern for the proper burial of the martyrs, and suffered with her.
Indes is named as a eunuch and former pagan priest who converted together with Domna; according to the account his body was afterward recovered from the sea. Zeno, a soldier and regimental commander, denounced the emperor Maximian, for which he was stoned and then beheaded. Dorotheus, Mardonius, and Migdonius were imprisoned and afterward executed, while the bodies of Peter and Gorgonius are likewise said to have been recovered from the sea.
Nicomedia was an imperial residence under Diocletian, which placed its Christian community at the center of the persecution that opened in 303. The synaxarion connects this company of martyrs with the destruction of the city's principal church and with Bishop Anthimus, who hid in a village, sent letters of encouragement, and was eventually captured and beheaded. The same bishop and his companions are commemorated on September 3, while the great multitude burned in the church is also remembered on December 28.
Named with them: Dorotheus, Mardonius, Migdonius, Peter, Indes, Gorgonius, Zeno, the virgin Domna, and Euthymius