4th century (reposed c. 389)
A Cypriot-born bishop of Apamea in Syria who opposed pagan worship and was killed while working to destroy a pagan temple in 375.
The Holy Hieromartyr Marcellus, Bishop of Apamea
Marcellus was a fourth-century bishop of Apamea in Syria, remembered as a hieromartyr for his death in the course of dismantling the pagan temples of his region during the reign of the emperor Theodosius the Great. Born on the island of Cyprus to a family of standing, he received a fine education and held a high civil office before turning to the service of the Church.
He is best known for the destruction of the great temple of Jupiter (Zeus) at Apamea, an episode preserved in the early Church historians, and for his martyrdom by fire while a further temple was being demolished near Aulona in the Apamea district. His feast is kept on August 14.
According to the synaxarion, Marcellus was born on the island of Cyprus to illustrious parents. He received an excellent education and held a high civil position, and the sources describe him as marked by purity of life, mildness, kindness and eloquence.
In 375 he abandoned his family and worldly station to pursue the monastic life in Syria. Visiting the city of Apamea, he was elected its bishop by the people.
The defining work of Marcellus's episcopate, as recorded by the early Church historians Theodoret and Sozomen, was the dismantling of the pagan temples of the Apamea district under the anti-pagan measures of the emperor Theodosius the Great.
The great temple of Jupiter (called the temple of Zeus in the Greek tradition) proved especially difficult to destroy: its huge stones were so firmly laid and clamped together with iron and lead that breaking them apart seemed beyond human strength. A workman undermined three of the massive columns and propped them temporarily with olive wood so that they might be burned, but the wood would not take fire. When this was reported to Marcellus, he had water blessed and commanded that it be sprinkled around the wood; thereupon the wood burned quickly, the columns fell, and the whole temple collapsed in upon itself.
Marcellus met his death while a further pagan temple was being demolished near Aulona, in the Apamea district. Watching the work from a distance, he was seized by pagans and thrown into a fire, and so died as a hieromartyr.
A local synod afterward forbade the saint's sons from avenging his death, holding that it would be wrong to seek revenge for such a martyrdom and that they should give thanks to God instead.
Marcellus is commemorated in the Orthodox Church as a hieromartyr on August 14.
By tradition his blessing and sprinkling of water at the destruction of the temple is associated with the Small Sanctification (Blessing) of Waters, the rite performed at the beginning of each month.