GREATMARTYR ARTEMIUS

November 2 (October 20) The Church honors the memory of the Holy Great Martyr Artemius. The saint was highly revered in the Ancient Church. He is still revered today, albeit in an unnoticeable way, as evidenced by the fairly large number of our contemporaries who bear the name of this saint. However, his very life, biography and the unique paradoxical exclusivity of his martyrdom were forgotten. In this combination of the popularity of the name and oblivion about the personality of its wonderful protagonist, there is a certain special, sad postmodern paradox.

Artemius entered the memory of the Church with the name of “Great Martyr.” It is generally accepted that those of Christ’s witnesses who endured more suffering than other martyrs were called great martyrs. However, it is not.

The Ancient Church called great martyrs those few of Christ’s witnesses who, having suffered for the faith even to the point of death, were of royal or very noble origin. The testimony of such people was visible to everyone and was very great. We can say that the great martyrs are a special face of holiness.

The difference between Artemius and other great martyrs, most of whom suffered for Christ during the Great Persecution of Diocletian (284–305), is that he testified to the Christian faith during the reign of Julian the Apostate (361–363). This means that he suffered for Christ in an era when Christianity was no longer persecuted and was allowed.

The very name “Artemius” testifies to the pagan origin of the military leader. It is associated with the ancient Greek goddess Artemis and suggests that his parents were fans of this deity of the hunt, who was considered the personification of eternal youth. Such a warlike character of the name may have predetermined the choice of Artemius’ future military career, which determined the entire essence of his biography.

It is important to remember that in ancient times Christians did not seek to change their former pagan names at baptism. This choice of theirs had very significant semantics. The fact is that the pagans considered Christians to be enemies of society. They pursued them and tried to exterminate them. If this was not possible, Christians were forced to remain in the shadows, to be marginal, that is, they were forced out of their “Earthly City,” as the Father of the Ancient Church, Saint Augustine (354–430), called the pagan community.

In the light of this logic, the refusal of one’s own name in baptism on the part of a Christian would mean, in the eyes of a pagan, confirmation of the fact that Christians are truly opponents of established things. Moreover, the name in the eyes of the pagans had enormous significance.

In contrast to this, Christians, retaining their pagan names in baptism, thereby at first deliberately profaned them, that is, deprived them of any magical power. Then they introduced their names into the communion of the names of the saints in Christ - God Who Became Human and took for himself one of the human names: Jesus.

“There is no salvation outside the world.” This early Christian axiom was a genuine addition to the other pole of Christian consciousness in those days, which was formulated by the St. Cyprian of Carthage (200-258) in the middle of the 3rd century: “There is no salvation outside the Church.”

“The City of God” and the “City of Man” - according to the thought of St Augustine of Hippo - are not the Church and the World, but their inescapable togetherness, which the Church and the World will have to partake until the end of time.

So, the pagans demanded that the first Christians leave the world. Considering the sacrament of baptism, about which the pagans have made many slanders, they would welcome the renunciation of their names by the baptized. In the eyes of the pagans: this would mean their withdrawal or abandonment of the world. But already the Apostle Paul exhorted Christians not to go out of the world (cf. 1 Cor. 5:10). Christians prayed that the world would be sanctified, and that all pagans would believe and be baptized. They asked God that evil and everything pagan would be abolished here on earth in the hearts of people. For there is no salvation outside the world.

Artemius was a Roman commander under the Emperor Constantine the Great (306–337) and his successor sons. The legalization of Christianity by Constantine, and then his baptism on his deathbed, seems almost logical to us. However: the latest research is increasingly revealing to us its revolutionary nature.

Indeed, by the beginning of the 4th century, Christians in the Empire numbered a little more than ten percent. After the political and administrative reforms of Diocletian, the Roman State flourished again. Paganism experienced a philosophical revival of Neoplatonism, and the religion of the Romans absorbed more and more new, primarily Eastern cults and thus, like a kind of metaphysical vampire, fed itself with them.

Constantine’s sovereign decision to legalize Christianity and then become a Christian himself was a genuine revolution. The children of this Revolution were Artemius and many other Christians of noble birth who were baptized after the emperor. A new, Constantinian Period in the history of the Church began. This Period in the history of Orthodoxy was destined to last until the Revolution of 1917 in Russia.

Artemius revered Constantine as his hero, and therefore served his sons faithfully. Constantine’s successor and son Constantius II (337–361) was a zealous Arian. He persecuted Nicene Orthodoxy, and, although, unlike his father, he did not go into dogmatic questions, he persecuted Athanasius the Great, and other supporters of the Council of Nicaea (325). Constantius sent the future great Fathers of the Church, and Orthodox bishops into exile, and tried by all means to deprive them of their chairs.

Thus, in 345, during the third exile of Athanasius of Alexandria, Constantius supported his Arian rival, George the Cappadocian, whose episcopacy lasted until 358. The heretic, whom Gregory the Theologian in his works called the “Cappadocian monster,” was eventually expelled by the Alexandrian people themselves for his great cruelty in governing the diocese.

Being obedient in everything to the rulers of the “Dynasty of Constantine,” Artemius supported the Arians in everything. By then he had become the Roman military ruler of Egypt. He was a real patron for the just mentioned Arian bishop George the Cappadocian.

It is important that Artemius confidently believed in Christ - he trusted God, believed in God, and strived to follow God. In the language of theology, such faith and confidence are called “non-dogmatic faith”.

Devotion to the Christian Emperor was combined in him with fiery love for Christ. Therefore, he zealously opposed paganism, which, in Alexandria, as throughout Egypt, continued to be unusually strong in those days.

Thus, during the reign of Constantius, by order of Artemius, the famous pagan sanctuary - the Temple of Serapis - was desecrated. In the face of the most powerful pagan party in Alexandria, this was very daring. In fact, this was the apogee of Artemius’ struggle, as a ruler, with ancient paganism in the capital.

In 361, after the death of Constantius, Julian ascended the throne. He immediately proclaimed himself a pagan and thus became an apostate from Christianity. This event turned out to be so sudden and terrible for Christians that the former times of the Arian Emperors began to seem to them a favorable time. Thus, in his works dedicated to current events, Gregory of Nazianzus (329-390) uttered many praises to the “pious Constantius.” At the same time, he compared him with Julian.

Upon Julian’s accession to the throne, when it became obvious to everyone that he professed paganism, the pagans of Alexandria wrote a denunciation against Artemius. In this paper they accused him of desecrating the Temple of Serapis. So, the pagan deity, or, according to the Christians of that time, the demons behind this idol, “took revenge” on him.

Artemius was summoned to Antioch, where Julian was then located. Apparently, it was a matter of honor for the apostate to deal with Christians where, for the first time in history, the disciples of Jesus began to be called Christians (cf. Acts 11:26). In Antioch, Artemius was interrogated, tortured, sentenced to beheading by the sword and executed. Witnesses were amazed at how steadfastly he endured the torment. They also remembered how, knowing about his imminent execution, Artemius did not ask for mercy. Moreover, he boldly asked the emperor not to torture, but to have mercy on two Christian priests, who, by coincidence, were forced to renounce the Christian faith at the same time as him.

This soon happened in a battle with the Persians. In biblical terms, Julian was struck down by God with great power (cf.Rev.18:21). Indeed, according to historians, even the cause of his violent death remained unknown.

Artemius’ body was found by Christians and transferred to Constantinople, where in the 6th century a temple was dedicated to him, which was a place of special veneration. It is extremely important, surprising and unique that at first Artemis was revered as a martyr by the Arians. However, with the accession of Emperor Theodosius I the Great (379-395) to the throne in 379, Arianism in the East came to naught. The veneration of Artemius not only remained, but grew more and more, spread and increased. If we try to find a definition for his story, then, perhaps, Artemius is one of the very few “non-dogmatic saints.”