Feast day: March 29
Sts. Jonas & Barachisius
Two brothers, monks of Persia, who went about encouraging Christians condemned under King Shapur II and were themselves seized and put to death after fearful tortures.
Jonas and Barachisius were two brothers, monks of Persia, who suffered martyrdom about the year 327 during the long and savage persecution of Christians under the Sasanian king Shapur II. Their story is preserved in the early Syriac Acts of the Persian martyrs, among the most vivid records of ancient Christian suffering.
According to that account, the two left their monastery to encourage a group of Christians condemned to death, exhorting them to stand firm. After the others were executed, Jonas and Barachisius were themselves arrested and ordered to worship the sun, moon, fire, and water, as the Persian religion required.
On their refusal they were subjected to prolonged and ingenious tortures, described in harrowing detail in the Acts. Through it all the brothers are said to have professed their faith calmly and even joyfully, encouraging one another to endure.
Both died under torture. Their memory was carried westward, so that these two obscure Persian monks came to be honoured across the whole Christian world as witnesses to constancy under persecution.
They were arrested not for being Christians in hiding but for openly comforting fellow believers on their way to execution.
Source: newadvent.org/cathen/11712a.htm
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