Saint Marc d'Aréthuse
Evêque d’Aréthuse en
Syrie et martyr (+ 364)
et plusieurs autres
martyrs en Terre Sainte.
Marc se laissa d'abord
entraîner dans les rangs des évêques qui acceptèrent l'arianisme, cherchant
d'abord un compromis avec la foi orthodoxe. Quand il s'aperçut que c'était
impossible, il rejoignit la doctrine des saints Conciles. Lors de la
persécution de Julien l'Apostat, il la fuit pour ne pas s'exposer sans
nécessité. Lorsqu'il apprit que des fidèles de son Église étaient soumis à la
torture, il se livra aux païens. Sans respect pour le vieillard qu'il était, il
fut livré à des enfants qui, pour s'amuser, le mirent à nu, l'enduisirent de
saumure et de miel, l'enfermèrent dans une cage suspendue, exposé aux ardeurs
du soleil et aux dards des guêpes. Finalement vaincus par son endurance, ses
tortionnaires le libérèrent et il mourut en paix quelques années plus tard.
Commémoraison de saint
Marc, évêque d’Aréthuse en Syrie. Par esprit de conciliation, il proposa une
formule de foi capable d’apaiser les discussions entre les fidèles de Nicée et
les ariens, ce qui le rendit suspect aux orthodoxes. Sous Julien l’Apostat, des
païens le torturèrent grièvement, mais il survécut et mourut en paix l’an 364,
salué par saint Grégoire
de Nazianze comme un homme remarquable et un très savant vieillard.
Martyrologe romain
SOURCE : http://nominis.cef.fr/contenus/saint/886/Saint-Marc-d-Arethuse.html
Saint Marc
d'Aréthuse, évêque
Marc se laissa d'abord
entraîner dans les rangs des évêques qui acceptèrent l'arianisme, cherchant
d'abord un compromis avec la foi orthodoxe. Quand il s'aperçut que c'était
impossible, il rejoignit la doctrine des saints conciles. Lors de la
persécution de Julien l'Apostat, il la fuit pour ne pas s'exposer sans
nécessité. Lorsqu'il apprit que des fidèles de son Eglise étaient soumis à la
torture, il se livra aux païens. Sans respect pour le vieillard qu'il était, il
fut livré à des tourments les plus ignominieux. Finalement vaincus par son
endurance, ses tortionnaires le libérèrent et il mourut quelques années plus
tard, en 364.
Profile
Bishop of Arethusa,
Mount Lebanon.
Attended the 351 synod
at Sirmium where he produced a creed that got him falsely labelled an Arian.
He was struck from the Roman Martyrology for years, but research by
the Bollandists vindicated
him and restored his name to the roles.
martyred in 362 during
the persecution of Julian
the Apostate
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MLA
Citation
“Saint Mark of
Arethusa“. CatholicSaints.Info. 8 November 2022. Web. 23 March 2026.
<https://catholicsaints.info/saint-mark-of-arethusa/>
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/saint-mark-of-arethusa/
St. Mark
Feastday: March 29
Martyred bishop of
Arethusa, on Mount Lebanon. He destroyed a local pagan temple,
enraging the pagan populace.
Emperor Julian
the Apostate ordered that Mark and other
Christians rebuild the temples that they had destroyed. Mark fled rather
than comply, but he surrendered when members of his flock were arrested. He was
tortured by being dragged through the streets, but he remained so loyal
to Christ and the
Church that he was set free. Emperor Julian pardoned him. In some reports Mark died as a
martyr.
SOURCE : https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=4512
Mark of Arethusa BM (AC)
Died c. 362. Bishop Mark
of Arethusa on Mount Lebanon, Syria, one of those caught in the web of
unfortunate history. Mark was present at the synod of Sirmium where he produced
a creed for which he was unjustly accused of Arianism by Baronius, who excluded
his name from the Roman Martyrology nor is he venerated in the Western Church.
He had been long engaged in the errors and intrigues of the Semi-Arians; but
the encomiums given him by Saint Gregory Nazianzen, Theodoret, and Sozomen,
when they relate his sufferings, show that towards the end of the reign of
Conmantius, he joined in the orthodox communion.
When Emperor Constantius
and his eldest son were killed by his uncle, Julius Constantius, the two
younger sons, Gallus and Julian, narrowly escaped death. Bishop Mark concealed
and provided for Julian, later to be known as the Apostate. When Julian
ascended the throne, he commanded that the Christians rebuild the temples that
they had demolished. On the authority of Constantius, Mark had destroyed a magnificent,
highly esteemed temple and built a church in its place. When the pagans again
found themselves in authority and sought revenge upon him, Mark went into
hiding.
From his refuge he
learned that members of his flock were suffering in his stead, so he returned
and surrendered himself. He was seized and dragged through the streets by his
hair, stripped, scourged, and finally handed over to schoolboys. Like Saint
Cassian of Imola, Saint Mark is said to have been maimed, then stabbed (to
death?) by iron pens.
The myth continues that
he survived many other tortures and insults, and continued to refuse to rebuild
their temple, because it would be impious to contribute to such idolatrous
work. At length the fury of the people was turned into admiration of his
patience, and they set him at liberty; and several of them afterwards begged of
him to instruct them in the faith that was capable of inspiring such a
resolution. Having spent the remainder of his life in the faithful discharge of
the duties of his station, he died in peace under Jovian or Valens.
Myths and innuendo aside,
the Bollandists have vindicated Saint Mark of any complicity in semi-Arianism.
They state that he actually died a martyr under Julian the Apostate (Attwater,
Attwater2, Benedictines, Husenbeth).
SOURCE : http://www.saintpatrickdc.org/ss/0329.shtml
March 29
St. Mark, Bishop and
Confessor
SOME Greeks rank among
the saints on this day Mark, bishop of Arethusa, in Syria, in the fourth age.
When Constantius put to death his uncle Julius Constantius, brother of
Constantine the Great, with his eldest son; the two younger, Gallus and Julian,
narrowly escaped the sword. In that danger Mark concealed Julian, and secretly
supplied him with necessaries for his subsistence. When Julian became emperor,
he commanded that the temples which had been demolished by Christians, during
the two preceding reigns, should be rebuilt at their expense. Mark had, by the
authority of Constantius, demolished a very magnificent temple which was held
in great veneration by the idolaters: he had also built a church, and converted
a great number of infidels. Authorized by the law of Julian, the heathens of
Arethusa, when they saw themselves uppermost, fell on the Christians; and Mark,
finding that they were ready to show their resentment against him in
particular, which they had long concealed, he at first, pursuant to the gospel
precept, betook himself to flight to escape their fury. But understanding that
they had apprehended some of his flock instead of him, he returned and
delivered himself up to the persecutors, to animate others in the same cause by
his example and instructions. They seized him
soon after his return,
dragged him through the streets by the hair, or any part they could lay hold
of, without the least compassion for his age, or regard for his virtue and
learning. Having stript him, and scourged him all over his body, joining
ignominy and insults with cruelty, they threw him into the stinking public
jakes. Having taken him from thence, they left him to the children, ordering
them to prick and pierce him, without mercy, with their writing-styles, or
steel pencils. They bound his legs with cords so tight, as to cut and bruise
his flesh to the very bone; they rang off his ears with small strong threads;
and in this maimed bloody condition they pushed him from one to another. After
this they rubbed him over with honey and fat broth; and shutting him up in a
kind of cage, hung him up in the air where the sun was most scorching, at
noon-day, in the midst of summer, in order to draw the wasps and gnats upon
him, whose stings are exceedingly sharp and piercing in those hot countries. He
was so calm in the midst of his sufferings, that, though so sorely wounded and
covered with flies and wasps, he bantered them as he hung in the air; telling
them, that while they were grovelling on the earth, he was raised by them towards
heaven. They frequently solicited him to rebuild their temple, but though they
reduced their demands by degrees to a trifling sum, he constantly answered that
it would be an impiety to give them one farthing towards such a work. This
indeed would be to concur to idolatrous worship; but his demolishing the temple
would have been against the order of law and justice, had he done it without
public authority. At length the fury of the people was turned into admiration
of his patience, and they set him at liberty; and several of them afterwards
begged of him to instruct them in the principles of a religion which was
capable of inspiring such a resolution. Having spent the remainder of his life
in the faithful discharge of the duties of his station, he died in peace under
Jovian or Valens. He is not named in the Roman Martyrology, nor venerated by
the church among the saints. He had been long engaged in the errors and
intrigues of the Semi-Arians; but the encomiums given him by St. Gregory,
Nazianzen, Theodoret, and Sozomen, when they relate his sufferings, show that
towards the end of the reign of Constantius, he joined in the orthodox
communion.
Rev. Alban
Butler (1711–73). Volume III: March. The Lives of the
Saints. 1866.
SOURCE : http://www.bartleby.com/210/3/295.html
St Mark the Confessor,
Bishop of Arethusa in Syria.
Commemorated March 29 in
the Orthodox Christian Menaion
From the Prologue
St Gregory the Theologian
and Blessed Theodoretus have given us an account of his sufferings. According
to these accounts, Mark destroyed some pagan temples and brought many to the
Christian faith during the reign of the Emperor Constantine. But when the
Emperor Julian came to the throne and quickly became an apostate from the
Faith, some of the inhabitants of Arethusa renounced Christ and lapsed into
paganism. They rose up against Mark because he had demolished the temple and
demanded that he either rebuild it or pay them a very large sum of money. As
Mark refused to do either the one or the other, he was flogged and flayed and
dragged through the streets. They then cut off his ears with strong, fine
threads, stripped him naked, smeared him with honey and left him bound to a
tree in the summer heat for the wasps, mosquitoes and hornets to eat. The
martyr of Christ endured all this without complaint. He was quite old, and his
face shone like an angel of the Lord. The pagans lowered the price of their
temple again and again, finally demanding a quite insignificant amount which
Mark could easily have given. But he refused to give even a single coin for
that purpose. His endurance made a great impression on the citizens, and they
began to admire him for it and to feel sorry for him, and gradually reduced the
price of their temple to nothing just to allow him to remain alive. Finally,
they let him go free and, one by one, all came to him to receive instruction
and become Christians again. A deacon, Cyril, also suffered at this time for a
similar cause in Heliopolis at the foot of mount Lebanon. He had broken some
idols at the time of the liberation of Christianity and was cruelly tortured
under Julian for this. The pagans were so enraged with him that, after they had
killed him, they tore out his teeth and ripped open his stomach. Many others
suffered on the same day as St Cyril. The evil pagans cut their bodies into
small pieces, coated them with barley and fed them to the pigs. But retribution
came swiftly upon them; all their teeth fell out and their mouths emitted an
unbearable stench.
From The Prologue From
Ochrid by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich
©1985 Lazarica Press,
Birmingham UK
SOURCE : http://www.orthodox.net/menaion-march/29-st-mark-the-confessor-bishop-of-arethusa-in-syria.html
Hieromartyr Mark the
Bishop of Arethusa, who suffered under Julian the Apostate
Commemorated on March
29
Hieromartyr Mark, Bishop
of Arethusa, suffered for his faith in Christ under the emperor Julian the
Apostate (361-363). By order of the emperor Constantine (May 21), St Mark had
once destroyed a pagan temple and built a Christian church.
When Julian came to the
throne, he persecuted Christians and tried to restore paganism. Some citizens
of Arethusa renounced Christianity and became pagans. Then St Mark’s enemies
decided to take revenge on him. The old bishop hid himself from the persecutors
at first, but then gave himself up when he learned that the pagans had tortured
many people in their search for him.
The holy Elder was led
through the city and given over to torture. They tore out his hair, slashed his
body, dragged him along the street, dumped him in a swamp, tied him up, and cut
him with knives.
The pagans demanded that
the holy bishop pay them a large sum of money to rebuild the pagan temple, and
he refused to do so. The persecutors invented several new torments: they
squeezed the Elder in a foot-press, and they cut off his ears with linen cords.
Finally, they smeared the holy martyr’s body with honey and grease, then hung
him up in a basket in the hot mid-day sun to be eaten by bees, wasps, and
hornets. St Mark did not seem to notice the pain, and this irritated the
tormentor all the more.
The pagans kept lowering
the price he had to pay for their temple, but St Mark refused to give them a
single coin. Admiring him for his courage and endurance, the pagans stopped
asking him for money and set him free. Many of them returned to Christ after
hearing his talks.
St Gregory the Theologian
(January 25) describes the sufferings of St Mark in his First Oration against
Julian. Theodoritus of Cyrrhus also mentions him in his CHURCH HISTORY (Book 3,
Ch. 6)
San Marco di Aretusa Vescovo
Festa: 29 marzo
† Aretusa, Siria, 364
San Marco, che fu vescovo
di Aretusa in Siria, al tempo dell’eresia ariana mai si allontanò dalla vera
fede. Sotto l’imperatore Giuliano l’Apostata subì atroci torture, ma morì poi
per cause naturali. San Gregorio Nazianzeno lo definì “uomo straordinario ed
anziano santissimo”.
Martirologio
Romano: Commemorazione di san Marco, vescovo di Aretusa in Siria, che ai
tempi della controversia ariana mai deviò dalla retta fede e sotto l’imperatore
Giuliano l’Apostata subì violente vessazioni; fu salutato da san Gregorio
Nazianzeno come personalità insigne e anziano di vita santissima.
Nulla conosciamo della giovinezza di tale santo, che regnante Costantino il Grande fu nominato vescovo di Aretusa, odierna Er Rastan in Siria. Per sua intercessione pare fu guaritò il futoro Giuliano l’Aposta, allora giovane principe. In quel tempo imperversava l’arianesimo e gli eretici erano convinti di aver guadagnato anche Marco alla loro causa: nel 343 infatti egli non venne deposto dal concilio di Sardica poiché parve scendere a patti con l’errore per la sua debolezza di carattere e per più di dieci anni mantenne un atteggiamento equivoco. Marco nel 351 era con gli pseudo-ariani al concilio di Sirmio, ove presentò una nuova formula di fede redatta in lingua greca che fu giudicatasospetta piuttosto che assolutamente eretica, secondo alcuni però risalirebbe a qualche anno dopo. E’ cosa comunque certa che verso il 360 Marco di Aretusa tornò a pieno titolo nell’ortodossia.
L’anno seguente Giuliano l’Apostata ascese al trono imperiale e promosse la restaurazione del paganesimo, con conseguenti misure vessatorie contro la Chiesa. Marco che ad Aretusa aveva fatto distruggere un tempio dedicato agli idoli, temette allora per la propria incolumità e fuggì. Quando gli giunse la notizia che alcuni ecclesiastici erano stati arrestati, non esitò a tornare in città per guidare il suo gregge. Rifiutatosi fermamente di ricostruire il tempio distrutto, fu allora imprigionato e torturato: la costanza nella fede ed il coraggo dimostrato nel sopportare le sofferenze cui fu sottoposto suscitarono l’ammirazione dei suoi persecutori, che infine si decisero a liberarlo. Soppravvissuto agli atroci tormenti, si dedicò all’evangelizzazione dei pagani ed morì per causa naturali nel 364.
Fu iscritto come “confessore della fede” nei menologi e nei sinassari bizantini, mentre il Cardinal Baronio preferì non inserirlo nel Martyrologium Romanum per il suo passato a stretto contatto con gli ariani. Il grande San Gregorio Nazianzeno definisce San Marco di Aretusa “uomo notevole e assai santo vegliardo”, nota che gli ha meritato in tempi recenti un riconoscimento della sua santità anche da parte della Chiesa catolica. I Bollandisti, per i patimenti subiti, lo considerano anche un martire.
Autore: Fabio Arduino
