Martyrs Theodotus and Rufina of Caesarea

Theodotus and Rufina were a married Christian couple of the third century, remembered chiefly as the parents of the Martyr Mamas of Caesarea. According to the synaxarion they came from patrician families and were widely honored for their Christian piety. When they refused to obey an imperial decree requiring the worship of the pagan gods, they were arrested and imprisoned at Caesarea in Cappadocia, where both reposed. They are commemorated together with their son on September 2.

By tradition, the couple was first summoned by Alexander, the magistrate of Gangra. Because of Theodotus's noble rank, Alexander sent him on to the governor Faustus in Caesarea of Cappadocia, who imprisoned him on his arrival. Rufina, though she was pregnant at the time, followed her husband and remained with him in prison, where the two suffered for Christ together.

The accounts relate that Theodotus died first in prison, having prayed that the Lord might take him before he could be subjected to torture. Rufina reposed shortly afterward, in sorrow at her husband's death and, by the tradition, soon after giving birth, so that the infant Mamas was left alone in the prison. A pious Christian widow named Ammia (called in some accounts Matrona), warned by an angel, obtained permission to bury the parents and took the child into her own home, raising him as her own.