Evidence ID
E06890Saint Name
Martyrios and Markianos, martyrs of Constantinople, ob. c. 351 : S01719Saint Name in Source
Μαρτύριος, ΜαρκιανόςType of Evidence
Literary - Hagiographical - Accounts of martyrdomEvidence not before
450Evidence not after
800Activity not before
351Activity not after
427Place of Evidence - Region
Constantinople and regionPlace of evidence - City name in other Language(s)
Constantinople
Κωνσταντινούπολις
Konstantinoupolis
Constantinopolis
Constantinople
IstanbulCult activities - Places
Cult building - independent (church)Cult activities - Non Liturgical Practices and Customs
Composing and translating saint-related textsCult Activities - Protagonists in Cult and Narratives
Heretics
Ecclesiastics - bishops
Crowds
Other lay individuals/ peopleSource
For the manuscript tradition, see:
http://pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr/notices/oeuvre/16057/
http://pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr/notices/oeuvre/16887/
For the edition, see Bibliography.Discussion
This martyrdom account belongs to a group of hagiographic texts which were composed in Constantinople, possibly in the 6th century. The group also includes the Lives of the Constantinopolitan bishops *Metrophanes and Alexandros (E07162), and *Paul the Confessor (E07002), a now lost pre-metaphrastic Life of *Athanasius of Alexandria (E07163), and the Life of *Isaakios (E06980). All of these works are characterised by the poverty of their information about their heroes and their dependence on 5th century ecclesiastical histories, especially Socrates. Three of these texts (the Lives of Metrophanes and Alexandros, Paul the Confessor, and Athanasius) were read by Photius in the 9th century, and are summarised in his Bibliotheca. This suggests that these texts were produced after the mid 5th and well before the 9th centuries. A 6th century date seems quite likely. Their composition may have been politically motivated by an effort to celebrate the contribution of Constantinople to Orthodoxy (Fusco 1996).
The Holy Notaries (Ἅγιοι Νοτάριοι) apparently died during the outbreak of violence which followed the deposition of Paul the Confessor and his replacement by Macedonius in c. 350. According to Sozomen, their cult gained popularity by the time of John Chrysostom (bishop 398-404), who started the building of their shrine. The church was consecrated by Sisinnius (426-427) (E04021).
Their Life demonstrates that their legend did not develop beyond the information provided by Sozomen. The only new piece of information it adds to our knowledge is that the shrine lay outside the gate of Melanthias, a gate of the Constantinian walls of Constantinople near the Holy Apostles (Janin 1969, 377-378).Bibliography
Text:
Franchi de' Cavalieri, P., "Una pagina di storia bizantina del secolo IV. Il martirio dei santi notari," Analecta Bollandiana 64 (1946), 169-171 (BHG 1028y) and 171-175 (BHG 1028z).
Further reading:
Fusco, R. La vita premetafrastica di Paolo il Confessore (BHG 1472a). Un vescovo di Costantinopoli tra storia e leggenda (Rome, 1996).
Janin, R. La géographie ecclésiastique de l'empire Byzantin. I 3: Les eglises et les monastères de la ville de Constantinople (Paris, 1969).
