Martyr
Martyr Heraclius of Athens
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Martyr Heraclius of Athens — a preacher of Christianity in Athens, seized together with his companions Paulinus and Venedimus and cast into a furnace (later tradition holds he survived the fire and was subsequently beheaded).
Martyrs Heraclius, Paulinus, and Venedimus preached Christianity in Athens, converting pagans to Christ. They were seized along with their disciples, tortured, and, per most sources, cast into a fiery furnace; according to a later tradition (the Synaxarion of St. Nicodemus), they survived the fire and were subsequently beheaded.
Some Latin sources place their martyrdom not in Athens but in Noviodunum (Lower Moesia, modern Isaccea, Romania) — a geographical discrepancy noted by scholars as an unresolved contradiction in the tradition. The earliest reference appears in the Syriac Martyrology of 411, which places "Heraclius and Paul" in connection with Bithynia.
Their feast is kept on May 18/31 (Greek tradition also gives May 15).
HONEST CAVEAT: the name Heraclius is shared by at least three different group traditions (the Athenian group with Paulinus and Venedimus; the Adrianople group with Bishop Alexander; one of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste) — lacking further distinguishing data (an image inscription, a specific clue), the Athenian identification was chosen as the most independently attested; full certainty of identity is not claimed.