By Fr. George Dorbarakis
1. Saint Basiliskos lived during the reign of Emperor Maximian (3rd century) and came from the village of Choumalia in Amaseia of Pontus. He was the nephew of the Holy Great Martyr Theodore the Recruit. Although at first he was tortured together with the fellow soldiers of Saint Theodore, Eutropios and Kleonikos, those two were perfected through martyrdom for Christ, while Basiliskos himself was left in prison. But because he had a great desire to complete the course of martyrdom himself, he prayed to God for this, and he was granted a vision of the Lord, Who commanded him to go and bid farewell to his family, and then, when he arrived at Comana, he would receive the martyr’s crown.
The Saint was therefore released from prison by the soldiers, and together with them he went to his home. After bidding farewell to his mother and brothers, exhorting them to remain steadfast in the faith of Christ, he stayed with them for a short time. But the governor Agrippas, having learned of his release, sent other soldiers, who arrested him. They bound him and put sandals on his feet that had nails driven through them, and thus they led him by force along the road to Comana — the place where his martyrdom awaited him. Arriving at the village of the Daknoi, they were hosted in the house of a woman named Traiane, while the Saint was tied to a dry plane tree with his hands bound behind him. The Saint prayed, and the plane tree sprouted and put forth many leaves. Moreover, a spring of water burst forth from its roots, at the very place where the Saint had been tied. When the soldiers and the woman saw this miracle, they declared that they believed in Christ and loosed the Saint from his bonds.
At length they arrived at the city of Comana, where the Saint was brought before the governor. Since he refused to sacrifice to the idols, fire came down from heaven through his prayer and burned both the temple of the idols and the statue of Apollo. After this, the governor became exceedingly enraged and ordered that the Saint’s head be cut off and his body cast into the river. Thus the Saint received the crown of martyrdom, unto the glory and praise of our God.
2. The Holy Hymnographer Joseph reflects on why the Lord did not allow Saint Basiliskos to complete his martyrdom from the beginning together with Saints Eutropios and Kleonikos. And, enlightened by the Lord, he gives the answer: the Saint had to remain behind as a witness of the Holy Trinity and a confessor of faith in Christ, so that other well-disposed people might also find the path of faith. Indeed, he notes that this “delay” occurred in cooperation with the other two Saints themselves. “The chosen pair of spiritual athletes, O glorious one, departed to Christ after leaving you as a witness of the Trinity” (Ode 3). And again: “After your fellow athletes departed, you remained, O greatly-suffering Basiliskos, confessing Christ as Lord and God” (Ode 3).
And this is understandable: nothing in this world is accidental. Our own distorted and shortsighted reasoning may imagine that it controls everything, but it is the Lord, as the Almighty and All-knowing God, Whose counsels always have the first and final word. And the events that followed clearly prove this truth: the Saint became a channel of the Lord’s almighty energy, which moved the hearts of pagans to believe.
The tortures endured by the Saint were many: he struggled beforehand together with Saints Eutropios and Kleonikos and was thrown into prison; he remained there for a long time; when he was arrested again after his release, he endured torments reminiscent of Saint George the Great Martyr — walking with blows and violence upon sandals fitted with nails; being bound to a dry plane tree like a kind of crucifixion — as the Hymnographer himself sees it: “As you proclaimed the crucified Lord, they bound you to a dry tree” (Ode 6); and finally receiving death by the decapitation of his head.
And amid all these terrible things, Saint Joseph reveals to us — as happens with all the holy martyrs — the “other side” of events: how the Lord, drawn by the fervent love of His faithful servant for Him (Ode 1), gave him strength to endure; how He appeared to him and revealed His plan to him; how He made him an instrument for performing great miracles that brought about the good transformation of the people connected with him; how He raised him to the level of the Prophet Elijah (Ode 9), who likewise called down fire through prayer in order to destroy idols; how He manifested him as victorious over the demonic powers.
The vision that the Holy Hymnographer especially has regarding this last point is astonishing: “They put sandals with nails upon your feet, and you joyfully walked the road of martyrdom, crushing beneath them the head of the devil completely” (Sticheron at Vespers and Ode 5).
Saint Basiliskos can be “interpreted” only through spiritual realities: it was his love for Christ, as we said, that enabled him to transcend everything passionate and earthly (Ode 8). This means that he lived in the world as another Christ, as a dwelling place of Christ Himself, and for this reason he shattered all the idols that stood in his way. “You were shown to be a temple of the Holy Trinity, rejecting with abhorrence the idols and their altars, O wise one” (Ode 7).
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
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