Martyrs Isidore and Myrope of Chios

Isidore, officer of the fleet

According to the tradition, Isidore was born in Alexandria, Egypt, and served as an officer in the Roman navy stationed at Chios. When his Christian faith was discovered — by the account of one source through a centurion named Julius — he was brought before the fleet's commander, the admiral Numerius. Isidore refused to renounce Christ or to worship the gods of the state, declaring, in the words preserved by the synaxarion, that he would never cease to confess Christ while breath remained in his body.

He was subjected to severe tortures: beaten with whips, dragged over rocky ground, and, by some accounts, having his tongue cut out. The synaxarion relates that Numerius was himself struck dumb, losing the power of speech. By the admiral's order Isidore was beheaded, and his body was cast into a well or cistern.

Myrope and the burial

Myrope was born at the beginning of the third century in the city of Ephesus. Her father died when she was young, and her mother raised her in the Christian faith. By tradition she was devoted to the relics of the Martyr Hermione, daughter of the Apostle Philip, whose grave she visited, taking myrrh from the relics with which the sick were healed. During the persecution of Decius she came with her mother to Chios, where they lived in fasting and prayer.

Learning that the soldier Isidore had been martyred and his body thrown away to be devoured, Myrope — with the help of Saint Ammonios, by one account — secretly recovered the body and buried it. When the guards faced execution for the loss of the body, she went of her own accord to confess that she had taken it, refusing to reveal where it lay so as to spare the innocent soldiers. She was publicly flogged and thrown into prison, covered with wounds. The synaxarion relates that at midnight, as she prayed, a light filled the prison and Isidore appeared surrounded by angels, whereupon she surrendered her soul to God; a sweet fragrance was said to issue from her body. She was buried beside Isidore.

Relics & Shrines

A chapel, and later a church, was built over the shared grave of the two martyrs on Chios. According to tradition, in the 5th century Saint Markian transferred relics to Constantinople, and in the 6th century Saint Gregory of Tours recorded miracles at the well into which Isidore's body had been thrown.

Isidore's veneration spread widely through the Mediterranean, and he came to be regarded as a patron of sailors. By tradition his remains were transferred from Chios to the Basilica of St. Mark in Venice in 1125, where a chapel holds his sarcophagus; his body was rediscovered there in the early 14th century. His skull, kept on Chios in a silver and jeweled reliquary, was taken to Venice in 1627.

Traditions

A local tradition of Chios holds that the trees of the island wept for Isidore, and connects his martyrdom with the mastic resin still harvested there.