ST EUPSYCHIUS, MARTYR - 9 APRIL

 

 ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN APRIL

Saints celebrated on the 9th of April

Prayer to the Angels and the Saints

Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.

In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.

Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.

Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

ST EUPSYCHIUS, MARTYR 

Julian the Apostate, in his march to Antioch, arriving at Caesarea, the capital of Cappadocia, was exceedingly irritated to find in the greater part of the city Christians, and that they had lately demolished a temple dedicated to Fortune, being the last pagan temple remaining there: wherefore he struck it out of the list of cities, and ordered that it should resume its ancient name of Mazaca, instead of that of Caesarea, the name with which Tiberius had honoured it. 

THE MOST CONTEMPTIBLE SERVICE

He deprived the churches, in the city and its territory, of all that they possessed in moveables or other goods, making use of torments to oblige them to a discovery of their wealth. He caused all the clergy to be enlisted among the train-bands, under the governor of the province, which was the most contemptible, and frequently the most burdensome service, and on the lay Christians he imposed a heavy tax. 

ST BASIL CELEBRATED HIS FEAST

Many of them he put to death, the principal of which number was Saint Eupsychius, a person of noble extraction, lately married. The tyrant left an order that the Christians should be compelled to rebuild the temples; but, instead of that, they erected a church to the true God, under the title of St Eupsychius: in which, on April 8, eight years after, St Basil celebrated the feast of this martyr, to which he invited all the bishops of Pontus, in a letter yet extant.

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)