Saint Mark of Arethusa

Saint Mark was bishop of Arethusa in Syria in the fourth century. In the reign of Emperor Julian the Apostate he gave himself up to his persecutors in order to save his faithful, and he endured cruel torture without yielding in anything. The Church commemorates him on March 29.

Nothing is known of his origins or his youth; the year of his birth is unknown as well. We owe what we know of him above all to his contemporary Saint Gregory of Nazianzus and to the Church historians of the fifth century, Theodoret and Sozomen. Gregory writes that under Emperor Constantius Mark pulled down a pagan temple at Arethusa and won many of the inhabitants for Christ, as much by the holiness of his life as by the power of his preaching. Theodoret adds that he built a church on the site of the temple.

These were the years of the Arian controversy, which divided the Church in the East. Mark was one of the bishops who looked for a formula of agreement. He was among the envoys who brought to Emperor Constans a profession of faith drawn up after the synod of Antioch, and later he was credited with one of the formulas issued at Sirmium, which avoided the Nicene word “consubstantial.” For this reason his orthodoxy was called into question, and the old Roman Martyrology did not list him. The present Martyrology states that in the Arian controversy he did not depart from the orthodox faith.

When Julian came to power in 361 and began to restore paganism, the bishop was told to rebuild the temple he had pulled down or to pay for its rebuilding. Following the counsel of the Gospel, Mark at first left the city. But when he learned that other Christians had been seized on his account, he came back and handed himself over to the mob.

The old bishop was dragged through the streets, beaten, and thrown into the sewers, and schoolboys stabbed him with their writing styluses. In the end he was smeared with honey and hung up in a basket in the summer heat, a prey to wasps and bees. The sum demanded was lowered again and again, but Mark, as Theodoret relates, answered that to give even a single obol would be as impious as to give everything. According to Gregory he also said from on high that it was a good omen: he was above, and his tormentors below.

The old man’s endurance put his torturers to shame. Theodoret writes that they let him go, admiring his constancy, and that afterward they themselves learned piety from him. Gregory mentions a pagan prefect who is said to have reproached the emperor for letting himself be beaten by one old man. He also recalls that Mark had once been among those who hid and saved the child Julian when his whole family was threatened with destruction.

Mark survived the torture and died a natural death, probably about 364; the exact date is not known. He has been venerated as a saint for centuries, without a formal canonization: the Eastern Churches also commemorate him on March 29. The Roman Martyrology calls him a bishop and cites the testimony of Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, who saw in him an outstanding man and a most holy old man.