Martyr Thyrsus of Caesarea

Saint Martyr Thyrsus, an elderly man who was at first only a catechumen, voluntarily confessed Christ before the governor of Caesarea in Bithynia under Emperor Decius (249–251) and endured a series of tortures typical of Greek martyrological literature: his limbs stretched to dislocation, his eyes pierced with nails, his teeth knocked out, boiling tin poured over him (which scalded bystanders instead of him), submersion head-down in a cauldron of boiling water (which burst) — and finally he was thrown to wild beasts, which merely walked quietly around him without harming him. In prison he was miraculously freed from his chains just long enough to be baptized by a bishop who came in secret, after which he voluntarily returned to custody.

Suffering with him were Leucius — a noble, learned Christian who publicly denounced the governor Cumbricius for the persecution, for which he was tortured and beheaded — and Callinicus, a pagan priest who converted to Christ after the idols of Zeus and Apollo collapsed at Thyrsus's prayer, and who likewise met a martyr's death.

Thyrsus himself, tradition holds, was the only martyr whom cruel torments could not kill — he died peacefully of natural causes after all his ordeals, including being sawn with a saw that could not touch him.

His feast is kept on December 14/27.