MARTYR ELEUTHERUS OF CONSTANINOPLE

The philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre asserted that man is a self-postulated freedom. Since there is a plurality of human beings, each of these individual freedoms tends to abolish the others. Therefore, hell is other people. What happens if we read the life of the Christian martyr Eleutherius, whose name means “free,” from a similar perspective?

1 Saint Eleutherius was beheaded on the orders of Maximian Galerius for secretly confessing Christianity at the imperial court. Galerius reigned from 293 to 311. He co-reigned with Diocletian in the East. Diocletian was a brilliant ruler; he reformed the Roman state and literally saved it from collapse. But he hated Christians, considering them enemies of the fatherland. During the first decades of his reign, persecutions were isolated, but later they took on a truly industrial scale, becoming a prophecy of future atheistic times. The memory of Saint Eleutherius is celebrated by the Church on August 17.

2 The life of Eleutherius has been preserved in the form of brief information collected by witnesses of his veneration centuries after his glorification. Nothing is known about the saint’s birthplace or parents. He was a chamberlain at court and a secret Christian. In his free time, he retreated to his estate in Bithynia, on the banks of the Sakarya River, not far from Lake Sapanca, where he set up a secret place of Christian prayer at the bottom of a well. At court, Eleutherius explained his absence by health problems. Since he always returned in a good mood and showed no signs of illness, this aroused suspicion. It was then that one of the slaves denounced him.

3 The city of Constantinople did not yet exist at that time. Nicomedia, then the capital of the Eastern emperors, was located very close to the saint’s estate. The emperor then went himself to Eleutherius’s property and found his Christian chapel there, at the bottom of a well. It was hidden, like Pinocchio’s closet, behind a small door…

4 Apparently, the emperor sincerely loved his servant. He therefore tried for a long time to convince him to renounce his faith and return to paganism. Unsuccessful, he ordered the saint to be beheaded and buried on the very spot where he prayed. His relics were found there, veneration began, and a great church was built. During the reign of the Orthodox Emperor Arcadius (395-408), a temple was erected in the saint’s honor in the new Byzantine capital on the Bosphorus, earning him the name “Eleutherus of Constantinople.”

5 The name Eleutherus, which literally means “free” in Greek, was popular among both Christians and pagans. The pagan world viewed freedom as the definitive liberation from the domination of the body or, conversely, the ability to fully satisfy all bodily desires. Christians professed that true freedom is grace. “For by grace you have been saved through faith,” writes the Apostle Paul (Ephesians 2:8).

6 Thus, an astonishing theological dialectic is created in the martyr’s life. Saint Eleutherius, Caesar’s slave, was forced into hiding. Betrayed by his own slave, who denounced him in the hope of obtaining freedom, the martyr “made a good confession in the presence of many witnesses” (1 Timothy 6:12). Free in name, which thus became a prophecy, he became truly free in Christ. The saint’s example calls us to constantly question what exactly freedom means for everyone.