DIOMEDES THE PHYSICIAN

On the day when, on August 29 (16), the Orthodox Church celebrates the remembrance of the translation of the Image of Christ the Savior “Not- Made-by-Hands” from Edessa to Constantinople in 944, the month also commemorates the holy martyr Diomedes the Physician. The importance of the cult of the saint in the Ancient Eastern Church is obvious from the fact that his name is invoked in the main prayer of the sacrament of anointing the sick in the Orthodox Church, which begins with the words: “Holy Father, Physician of souls and bodies.”

Diomedes practiced the art of medicine near modern Constantinople, which did not yet exist at the end of the third century. In its place there was a small village called “Byzantium”. The capital of the Empire then remained Rome - “Head of the World” (in Latin: caput mundi), and the capital city in general was any city where the Emperor stayed at one time or another.

This was the time of Diocletian (284-306). The latter tried with all his might to strengthen the aging Roman Empire. He carried out reforms and brought down his wrath on those who, as the Romans thought about Christians, were atheists. After all, Christians did not worship the ancient gods. They did not make bloody sacrifices, and thus, as the pagans believed, they introduced all sorts of innovations in religion.

Diocletian, like many pagans, in government circles and among the people, was convinced that Christians should be persecuted, forced to renounce, and return to paganism, and in case of refusal, destroyed. Then a great many people who believed in Christ suffered for Christ. Around 298, the now remembered martyr Diomedes Physician suffered.

His life is very laconic. We know Diomedeы was captured. On the way to the trial in the capital Nicomedia, where Diocletian was staying, the saint asked permission to pray in solitude. In prayer he gave his soul to God. The soldiers cut off the saint’s head. After all, Diomedes was a Roman citizen, and as such, according to the verdict of the court, should have had his head cut off. Apparently, they were afraid of possible punishment, and therefore, in such a strange and absurd way, they tried to comply with the protocol.

During his lifetime, the martyr was a doctor of visible human ailments. In this ability to heal, he seemed invincible to the pagans. At the same time, the life says that the guards cut off the head from the body that was already dead, in order to thus prove to the powers that be that the holy healer and wonderworker, the unmercenary physician Diomedes, was finally and irrevocably dead. But soon those who cut off his head became blind on the way. In horror, they returned the head to its proper place with the body of the martyr. Then the executioners regained their sight. This was the first posthumous sign that Diomede performed.

The word “martyrdom” literally means “testimony.” In its immediate meaning, it is not associated with “torment,” but with the willingness to testify to one’s faith for Christ with his last breath. It meant believing while you were still living and breathing, believing and confessing faith before the pagans until the last look, the last word, the last breath and the last moment—all that unconditionally last time when time, this elusive “here and now”, still exists for a person,

One of the early Fathers of the Church, Saint Irenaeus of Lyons (130-202), wrote that the Son of God and the Holy Spirit are the hands of God. Today, when the Church remembers the Translation of the Image of the Savior Not Made by Hands, let us also remember the Martyr Diomedes the Physician. For in the saints, by the Holy Spirit, the Lord Jesus is seen. Thus, it becomes obvious that the true, miraculous image of God is a living man created by His hands.