The Holy Martyrs Trophymos and Phalos

Commemorated on March 16

The Holy Martyrs Trophymos and Phalos, by birth brothers and presbyters, served in Carian Laodiceia. During the time of a persecution under the emperor Diocletian (284-305) and his co-emperor Maximian (284-305), the brothers were taken under guard and brought before the governor Asclepiodotos. He ordered the holy brothers to be beaten with stones, but the stones, which they threw at the saints, flew back again and struck those that threw them. After a second interrogation the holy brothers were sentenced to crucifixion. Going to execution, they glorified God in that they were found worthy of the Saviour's death on a cross. The wondrous witnesses to God hanging on crosses continued their preaching, and their brave mother stood at the foot of the crosses. A certain Jewess, having bowed to the saints, cried out: "Blessed is the mother, having given birth to such sons". When the martyrs gave up their spirits to God, the prison guard said that he saw the souls of the holy brothers being carried upwards to heaven in the company of three Angels. All night the people stayed with the bodies of the holy martyrs. And in the morning the wife of the torturer Asclepiodotos came to the place of execution with her perfumed bejeweled veil. She told the people, that she saw by night in a dream the holy martyrs and the Angels, sent for the punishment of her husband.
The mother of the martyrs and two christians, by the names of Zosima and Artemon, buried the holy brothers in their native city of Stratonika. The torturer Asclepiodotos soon fell ill and died an horrible death.