TODAY'S SAINT (SS. Chaeremon and Ischyrion)

CHAEREMON AND ISCHYRION

Martyrs

In the year 247 St. Dionysius was chosen Bishop of Alexandria. Soon afterward, the people of Alexandria, incited by a pagan prophet and given further imptus by an edict of the Emperor Deccius, began a fierce persecution of all and escaped only through the aid and insistence of a wedding -party of pagans.

St Dionysius wrote an account of this persecution to Fabian, Bishop of Antioch. In it he states that many Christians fled into the desert and there perished from then elements, from hunger, thirst, over-exposure, or from wild beasts and wild men. Others were captured and sold into slavery.

He especially mentions Chaeremon, Bishop of Nilopolis, a very old man who took refuge in the mountains with a companion. Although a search was made in the mountains of Arabia by the Christians, nothing was ever again heard or seen of either of them.

He also mentions St. Ischyrion who was the procurator of a magistrate in a city of Egypt--probably Alexandra. When ordered by his maste to sacrifice to the gods, this holy man refused outright. He steadfastly persisted in this refusal in the face of both abuse and threats on the part of his master. Thereupon, the enraged magistrate had St. Ischyrion mutilated and impaled.

Both of these holy Martyrs are named in the Roman Martyrology on this date.

PRAYER

May the prayers of Ss. Chaeremon and Ischyrion make

us pleasing to You, Lord, and strengthen Your truth.

Amen.

Feast: December 22