Commemorated on February
13th
Saint Martinian, who was from Caesarea of
Palestine, flourished about the beginning of the fifth century. He struggled in
the wilderness from his youth. After he had passed twenty-five years in
asceticism, the devil brought a temptation upon him through a harlot, who when
she heard the Saint praised for his virtue, determined to try his virtue, or
rather, to undo it. Coming to his cell by night as it rained, and saying she had
lost her way, she begged with pitiful cries to be admitted in for the night,
lest she fall prey to wild beasts. Moved with compassion, and not wishing to be
guilty of her death should anything befall her, he allowed her to enter.
When she began to seduce him, and the fire of
desire began to burn in his heart, he kindled a fire and stepped into it,
burning his body, but saving his soul from the fire of Gehenna. And she, brought
to her senses by this, repented, and, following his counsel, went to Bethlehem
to a certain virgin named Paula, with whom she lived in fasting and prayer;
before her death, she was deemed worthy of the gift of wonder-working. Saint
Martinian, when he recovered from the burning, resolved to go to some more
solitary place, and took a ship to a certain island, where he spent ten years in
stark solitude, praying for a decade in uneventful bliss. He received sustenance
from fishermen who would leave him with provisions from time to time, making
certain that this holy man had enough to live on. Then a young maiden who had
suffered a shipwreck came ashore on his island. Not wishing to fall into
temptation again, he departed, and passed his remaining time as a wanderer,
coming to the end of his life in Athens.
Source: Orthodox Saints,
Spiritual Profiles for Modern Man January 1 to March 31, by George Poulos.
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese website.
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