Martyrs Holy Maccabee Martyrs

In the 2nd century BC, the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes began a cruel persecution of the Jews, seeking to forcibly impose Hellenistic customs and eradicate the Law of Moses — including compelling, under threat of death, the eating of pork and forbidding circumcision.

The first to die was the teacher of the Law, the elder Eleazar (variously reported as 80-90 years old), a scribe and priest: he was offered the chance merely to pretend to eat permitted food in order to save his life, but he refused, so as not to give the young a false impression that he had renounced the faith — and he died under torture by the wheel.

After him, seven brothers were seized: Abim, Antoninus, Gury, Eleazar (a namesake of the teacher, but a different person), Eusebon, Alim, and the youngest, Marcellus. Before their mother Solomonia's eyes, each of them — from eldest to youngest — was subjected to torture (cutting out the tongue, flaying the scalp, amputation of limbs, the wheel) and died confessing faith in the future bodily resurrection. Solomonia encouraged each son in their ancestral tongue, saying that it was not she who gave them life, but God, and God who would raise them again. Last, after all his brothers had died, the youngest, Marcellus, was tested — the king tried through the mother to persuade him to apostatize with a promise of mercy, but he too remained firm. After the death of her last son, Solomonia herself died.

According to tradition, the saints' relics were later translated to the West: to the Basilica of St. Andrew in Cologne and to the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome; Solomonia's relics are venerated in the Patriarchal Cathedral of St. George in Istanbul (Phanar).

The feast is kept on August 1/14. This is a single, indivisible group commemoration — the Church does not assign separate feast days to any of the brothers individually, nor to Eleazar or Solomonia.