Ofttimes we hear about the new martyrs of the Turkish yoke, whereas many of the men and women perhaps not only denied Christ but became Muslims themselves and then later on, after having repented of this, they decided to spiritually train in order to go and confess Christ boldly before the authorities in order to assuage the grievous errors of their previous confession. However, this is not something that was done recently under the Turkish yoke, but something that happened many times in the early years of Christianity as well.

During the time of the Emperor Maximian, who was certainly no friend of Christians at all, there was a young man named Kalliopios who had a mother named Theokleia. Now Theokleia was a widower, but her husband had left her very wealthy. She had raised the young man properly. He was very devout. He was someone who loved our Lord Jesus Christ and sought to emulate him in all things. In fact, he decided that he wanted to die as a martyr. This today is something that strikes us with probably a lot of fear, that someone wanted to become a martyr, and we have to remember also that the Orthodox Christian sense of martyrdom is not strapping a bomb to yourself and going into some place and taking out as many innocent people as you can, truly one of the most hideous perversions of martyrdom that the world has ever seen. No, this is a man who simply loved the Lord and wanted to confess him.

So he got down on his knees in front of his mother and confessed that this is what his heart desired. His mother, Theokleia, was very upset about this at first, but then she realized the type of saintly boy that she had raised and gave her blessing to this endeavor. Whereas Kalliopios went into the local prefecture, [ruled by] a man named Maximus, who was under Maximian at the time, and confessed our Lord Jesus Christ boldly and also told him that his own religion, that of polytheism, paganism, was in error and that he, too, needed to not only renounce his persecution of Christians but to embrace the Christian faith, too.

Well, we know how this usually goes down, and it did indeed, as Kalliopios was taken and at first was flogged with flagellants that had lead on the end of them. Then he was taken and tied to a wheel under which they lit a fire, in order to get him to renounce what he had said. He refused to do this. In fact, an angel came and lightened his burden, even though after the initial tortures were over it was still very, very difficult for him, and he was completely disfigured.

His mother, upon hearing about what he had gone through, immediately took every penny she had and gave it to the poor, and made sure that her 550 servants were taken care of. She then went and greeted her son in the prison and put oil on his wounds and stayed with him and prayed with him. Later that same night, an angel appeared with a voice from heaven, saying that on the morrow he would come to join the Lord. This happened to be on Great Thursday, and then in fact on early Friday, Holy and Great Friday, he was taken out and crucified upside-down in imitation of the Lord, as was our own beloved Apostle Peter.

Well, after he reposed, at the third hour of the day, which would have been about nine o’clock in the morning, his mother took his body and was weeping grievously over him, yet on the inside she was full of joy because she knew that this was what he wanted, and she knew that she had given her blessing to this. A lot of people were watching her with her son. She began to feel weak, and in fact within a few moments also fell over dead with her son.

It’s an incredible story, one that may give us pause at first, but it should also encourage us and actually give us a lot of encouragement in terms of looking at these early martyrs and the great love they had for Jesus Christ. Sometimes we find these stories astounding, but then again, in these first 300 years of Christian faith, some of the people were quite astounding, too. So may the Lord bless us in the same way that he blessed St. Kalliopios and his mother Theokleia, and let us remember that even youth can confess our Lord Jesus Christ. Kalliopios was 15 years old.