Historical Context
The martyrs suffered during the opening years of Byzantine iconoclasm, when the emperor Leo III the Isaurian moved against the veneration of religious images. According to the historical record, between 726 and 730 Leo ordered the removal of a prominent image of Christ from the Chalke Gate, the ceremonial entrance to the imperial palace, and around 730 issued an edict forbidding the veneration of icons.
The synaxarion relates that the icon of Christ over the Chalke (Copper) Gate had hung there since the era of Constantine the Great, and that the emperor, together with the iconoclast patriarch Athanasius, commanded its removal. The reigning patriarch Germanus, who supported the icons, was deposed; the wider record likewise notes that Patriarch Germanos I resigned or was deposed following the imperial ban.
The Defense of the Chalke Icon
By the account preserved in the synaxarion, when soldiers were sent to take down the icon of Christ over the Chalke Gate, a crowd of the faithful rushed to prevent the act. In the disturbance the ladder fell and the soldier attempting the removal was killed, an event dated to January 19, 730. Maria the Patrician is named among those who resisted, and the Protospatharios ('Sword-Captain') Gregory and the nun Theodosia are also remembered as defenders of the icon.
The named martyrs of this commemoration include Julian, Marcian, John, James, Alexius, Demetrius, Photius, Peter and Leontius, together with Maria the Patrician and Gregory the Protospatharios.
Martyrdom
The synaxarion relates that the emperor put many of the faithful to death. The nine named martyrs were imprisoned for about eight months, during which, by the tradition, they received five hundred blows each day. They were afterward burned with hot irons and beheaded. Maria the Patrician, on learning of their deaths, is said to have accepted execution willingly.
By tradition their bodies were found incorrupt and were buried near a martyrion church, where they were discovered some one hundred thirty-nine years later.
