Prefestive Day of the Feast of the Birth of the Mother of God.
The Holy Martyr Sozon.
Sozon was born in Lyconia. He was a
shepherd and kept all of God's laws, instructing his peers and
friends in his pious Faith. In a vision he was shown that he would
suffer martyrdom for Christ. This was in the time of Maximian,
magistrate of Cilicia, who perpetrated a terrible persecution of
Christians in the nearby city of Pompeiopolis. In that city there was
a certain golden idol which the pagans worshiped. Sozon left his
flock, went to the city, entered the pagan temple and broke the arm
off the golden idol. He crumbled it into bits and distributed it to
the poor. There was a great uproar because of this, and the pagans
sought out the guilty one. So that no one else would suffer for his
deed, Sozon went to the magistrate and declared himself to be a
Christian and the perpetrator of that act. His torturers first beat
him, then suspended him from a tree and scraped his body with iron
combs. When he was nearly dead, they cast him into a fire, where St.
Sozon gave up his holy soul to God. He suffered in about the year
304. St. Sozon's relics were miracle-working, and a church in his
name was built over them.Respectfully Taken From the:
"The Prologue of Ohrid"
by St. Nikolai of Zica, Serbia(Velimirovic)
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