Dorotheus the Hieromartyr
June 5th
The executioner was holding an enormous club, and the life of the valiant old bishop was about to end.
Strangely enough, however, the victim felt absolutely no fear. Smiling calmly, he closed his eyes and said a brief prayer to God Almighty. It was a prayer of thanks . . . a prayer of gratitude. After so many years of dedicated service to the Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ, the old man was about to receive a most precious gift – the crown of blessed martyrdom!
Now he watched the heavy wooden club rising above his head. In a few moments, it would all be over. What a wonderful life Dorotheus had enjoyed as a servant of God, and as the venerable Bishop of the great Phoenician city of Tyre! How he loved that ancient seaport (today the fourth-largest city in modern Lebanon), and the loyal Christians who had spent so many years celebrating their noble faith with him! And how remarkable it seemed – on this mild afternoon in the Year of Our Lord 362 – that TAKEN FROM Dorotheus was experiencing so much joy.
After more than 50 years of service as a bishop, and after writing the God-inspired Acts of the Seventy Apostles, the lion-hearted martyr felt his soul rejoicing with happiness as the vicious-looking club rose . . . and rose . . . and finally fell.
He was 107 years old that day, and he died without protest, while traveling through the ancient Black Sea port of Varna (today part of the Republic of Bulgaria). He perished as a victim of the persecution against Christians that had been launched by the vicious Julian the Apostate (361-363), one of the most violent enemies that Christianity has ever known.
Born and raised in the Asia Minor city of Antioch (according to most historians of the period), the youthful Dorotheus had been a brilliant student who knew the Greek and Roman classics well. A gifted writer, he had studied in the great world capital of Rome during his early years. And it was there, in the Eternal City, that he would celebrate the great Fathers of his Christian faith by studying the lives of The Seventy . . . the large group of dedicated disciples that had been chosen after the visitation by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, to “go forth and preach the Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ” to all the nations of the earth.
As a teacher of the great Church historian Eusebius, the Venerable Dorotheus would play an important role in helping to shape the written record of early Christianity. But his greatest gift was surely the Acts of the Seventy Apostles, in which he told the stories of these early disciples with enormous power and vivid clarity. While recounting the lives of such heroic early Christian preachers as Cleopas, Mark, Thaddeus, Pudens and Philemon, this extraordinary historian would craft a priceless document written in an unforgettable style. Describing the life of the great preacher Luke, for example, the Phoenician bishop would note:
“Luke, who preached the Gospel all over the world together with Paul, was bishop of Salonika. Luke the Evangelist came from Syrian Antioch, and went to Macedonian Thebes as a doctor during the reign of Emperor Trajan. He first wrote the holy Gospel to a certain ruler Theophilus, who believed in Christ.
“Then, many years after the passion of our Lord, and the holy apostle Peter having commanded him to narrate the acts of the holy apostles, Saint Luke narrated the acts of the holy apostles to the same Theophilus. And having done this, he gave up his soul to God in peace; and thus he died in Thebes. His holy relics were translated from Thebes to the church of the Holy Apostles, and were layed [sic] under the altar table.”
After composing his great history, the faithful and humble bishop would be driven into exile during the reign of the Roman Emperors Diocletian and Licinius. But he would survive this period of turbulent chaos, and would go on to become a vitally important presence at the critically important First Holy Ecumenical Synod, held in Nicaea (today part of the modern nation of Turkey).
It was here, in 325 A.D. and under the reign of the Christian Emperor Constantine the Great, that the humble Dorotheus would provide yet another invaluable service for his beloved Church . . . by helping to lead and inspire the forces that were arrayed against the dangerous heretic, Arius.
Because this particular heresy contended that Jesus Christ had not existed as part of God (the Logos) through all of eternity – but was in fact a mere mortal “creature” – Arianism represented what was probably the greatest threat to the true and orthodox faith in the entire history of Christianity.
The historic Holy Ecumenical Synod lasted for several years, and for a great while the future of Christianity hung in the balance. In the end, however, Dorotheus and the other opponents of the heresy succeeded in fending off the false doctrine, and the theological purity of Christian dogma was assured.
Once the doctrinal threat had passed, the Venerable Dorotheus returned to his flock in the Phoenician city of Tyre, where he enjoyed many additional years of service to his rapidly growing and expanding Holy Church. Later still, with the accession of the brutal Julian the Apostate, a wave of savage persecution once again broke over the ranks of the upholders of the Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ. Arrested and tortured endlessly in his cell by one of the Emperor’s sadistic princes, this valorous man of God refused to abjure the faith that had sustained him throughout an entire lifetime.
Thus it happened, on that mild afternoon in the Year of Our Lord 362, that the great martyr and saint Dorotheus found himself kneeling beneath an immense, wooden club. Smiling and praying, he did not resist. Nor did he condemn those who had sentenced him to pay the ultimate penalty out of their own ignorance.
He went to his death with a heart full of thanksgiving, and his life still inspires Christians today, more than sixteen centuries after this great writer, historian and thinker went to his eternal reward among the saints. Humble and faithful to the end, the kind-hearted Dorotheus has become a shining symbol of staunch loyalty to Almighty God!
Apolytikion in the Fourth Tone
As a sharer of the ways and a successor to the throne of the Apostles, O inspired of God, thou foundest discipline to be a means of ascent to divine vision. Wherefore, having rightly divided the word of truth, thou didst also contest for the Faith even unto blood, O Hieromartyr Dorotheus. Intercede with Christ our God that our souls be saved.
Kontakion in the Fourth Tone
Having lived piously the life of a hierarch, and having walked the path of martyrdom, thou didst extinguish idol-worship and wast a defender of thy flock, O godly-wise one. Wherefore we venerate thee, crying from our hearts: through thy prayers deliver us from danger, O Dorotheus our father.
