Martyr Anastasius the Disciple of the Venerable Maximus the Confessor
Commemorated January 21
The Holy Martyr Anastasius was a disciple of St Maximus the Confessor, and with him suffered persecution under the Monothelites. St Maximus and two of his disciples were subjected to the cruelest torments. Each one’s tongue was cut out, and his right hand was cut off. Then they were exiled to Skemarum in Scythia, enduring many sufferings and difficulties on the journey.
St Anastasius wrote the Life of his teacher, and died in the year 662.
Troparion
In thee, O father, was manifestly preserved what is in the image of God, for having taken up the cross, thou didst follow Christ and by thine own example hast taught that the flesh is to be despised as transient, but that particular care should be bestowed on the soul as a thing immortal; wherefore together with the angels rejoiceth also thine, O ascetic Anastasius, spirit.
Kontakion
As a keeper of fasts pious and skilled, as an honoured voluntary martyr and one that in the desert led the life of a hermit, — let us worthily extol in hymns Anastasius, the ever to be praised; for he hath trodden the serpent under his feet.
Source: Crkveni Kalendar
