The PriestMartyr Astios

Commemorated on June 4

The PriestMartyr Astios was bishop of the city of Dirrakheia (Macedonia) during the time of the emperor Trajan (98-117), a persecutor of Christians. The saint once had a dream, a foreboding of his impending suffering and death for Christ. He ordered his assistants to hide, and he himself was arrested and beaten fiercely with tin rods and oxhide whips. But Saint Astios did not renounce Christ. They smeared his body with honey, so as to increase his suffering with the stings of hornets and flies, and crucified him on a cross. The body of the priestmartyr was reverently buried by Christians.