Martyrs
Martyrs Zeno and Zenas
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A soldier and his former servant united as brothers through faith, charity and common martyrdom.
Core account checked against Orthodox Church in America — Lives of the Saints, June 22, The Prologue from Ohrid — June 22. Additional ecclesiastical references appear below.
Life and Witness
Freedom in Christ
Saint Zeno was a soldier of means who lived in Philadelphia of Arabia. Moved by the Gospel, he distributed his possessions to the poor and freed those held in his household.
Zenas, formerly his servant, refused to abandon him. Their relationship was transfigured into Christian brotherhood, and together they confessed Christ before the governor Maximus.
Common Martyrdom
The martyrs rejected sacrifice to idols and endured torture. Neither wealth, military standing nor the threat of death separated them from Christ or from one another.
They were beheaded and received the martyr's crown. Their shared witness proclaims the equality and freedom of persons within the Body of Christ.
Feast Day
June 22 — Holy Martyrs Zeno and Zenas.
Historical Record and Ecclesiastical Tradition
The account's stable core is Zeno's renunciation of military privilege and wealth and Zenas's free decision to remain with his former master as a brother in Christ. Their interrogation, torments and common death are presented as Synaxarion testimony, while uncertain office titles, locations and chronology are not expanded beyond what the ecclesiastical witnesses support.
Biographical information on this page is based exclusively on the Orthodox ecclesiastical sources listed below.
Orthodox Church in America — Lives of the Saints, June 22The Prologue from Ohrid — June 22