Martyr Agathangelus

Martyr Agathangelus was a Roman, a disciple and companion of Hieromartyr Clement, Bishop of Ancyra. Learning of the imprisonment and torments to which Hierarch Clement was being subjected, he deliberately gave up the chance to avoid danger and boarded a ship bound for Nicomedia to share with his mentor in suffering and death for Christ.

Under Emperor Maximian, under the cruel governor Agrippinus, both were subjected to inhuman tortures: they spent a whole day cast into hot lime without harm, had their skin flayed, were beaten with iron rods, and were laid on red-hot iron beds with sulfur poured on their wounds. Despite this, they continued in prison to heal the sick and baptize converts.

Agathangelus was beheaded by the sword on November 5 — before the final repose of Hierarch Clement, whose martyrdom of many years (according to tradition, about 28 years) concluded only later, during the celebration of the Divine Liturgy.

The joint commemoration of Hieromartyr Clement of Ancyra and Martyr Agathangelus is kept on January 23/February 5.

NOTE ON DISTINCTION: this entry describes the early Christian martyr Agathangelus of Rome (early 4th c.), companion of Hieromartyr Clement of Ancyra — not to be confused with a separate entry also existing in this database, Hieromartyr Agathangel (Preobrazhensky), Metropolitan of Yaroslavl (1854-1928), a 20th-century new martyr: these are two different, legitimately venerated namesake saints, not duplicate records.