Martyr
Unmercenary Cyrus of Alexandria
† ок. 311
Unmercenary Martyr Cyrus of Alexandria — a physician who healed the sick without charge and became a monk in the Arabian desert; together with the soldier John he came to support the persecuted Martyr Athanasia and her daughters and was beheaded under Emperor Diocletian.
Cyrus was a renowned physician in Alexandria who, as a Christian, treated the sick without charge, healing both body and soul — hence his title "Unmercenary." During the persecutions he withdrew to the Arabian desert and became a monk.
Learning that the Christian woman Athanasia and her three young daughters — Theoctista, Theodota, and Eudoxia — had been arrested in the Egyptian town of Canopus, Cyrus and the soldier John, his companion, hurried there to strengthen them for the coming ordeal. Both men were seized and subjected to severe torture (beatings, burning, boiling pitch) before being beheaded; Athanasia and her daughters were martyred soon after.
Patriarch Cyril of Alexandria later translated their relics to Menouthis, where numerous healings were reported at their shrine.
Their feast is kept on January 31/February 13.
NOTE: this is a separate, independent unmercenary tradition, distinct from the Cosmas-and-Damian cluster (3 canonical pairs) and from the physician Diomedes of Tarsus.