Commemorated September 18 (New Calendar) October 1 (Old Calendar)

Saint Ariadne was a slave of Tertil, ruler of Primnisa in Phrygia, in the reign of the emperor Hadrian. She would not enter the idol temple for the feast of his son’s birth. She was beaten, hung and scraped with iron, and starved in prison. When they let her go, she fled the city. The rock opened and received her.

What the reading keeps

Tertil kept a feast in the temple with his household, friends, and neighbors. Ariadne stayed in the house. He beat her without pity, hung her, ordered her body raked with iron, then shut her up and tried to wear her down by hunger, that she might deny Christ and bow to the idols.

He released her, and she left the city. Then he was sorry he had let her go, and ran after her with his servants. She looked back, saw the hunt, and came to a rock. She asked God to deliver her from their hands. By God’s command the rock split. She went into the stone, and the halves closed again. An angel of the Lord did this.

The men who chased her were struck with fear. They turned on one another, wounded each other with spears, and died. The reading says the Lord delivered His handmaid from the ungodly as a bird from the snare.

The memory records the contest and the rock. It does not preserve spoken words.

Who stood with her

Tertil was her master. His son’s birth was the occasion of the feast. His servants ran with him. The angel stood at the rock. No parents are named.

She was a slave in a house that required a lie at a family feast, and she would not go in.

We ask her prayers when a household feast is used to make us deny Christ, and when there is no door left except the one God opens.

Pray for us

Troparion, Tone 4 “Your lamb Ariadne calls out to You, O Jesus, in a loud voice: ‘I love You, my Bridegroom, and in seeking You I endure suffering. In baptism I was crucified so that I might reign in You, and I died so that I might live with You. Accept me as a pure sacrifice, for I have offered myself in love.’ Through her prayers save our souls, since You are merciful.”

Kontakion, Tone 2 “You appeared as a bright star announcing Christ with your radiance, which is repulsive to this world, O Martyr Ariadne; you extinguished the all-powerful evil one, and shed your blood to receive the crown of victory.”

Saint Ariadne, pray for us.

Sources

St. Demetrius of Rostov, Lives of the Saints, September 18. https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Dmitrij_Rostovskij/zhitija-svjatykh/800

Orthodox Church in America, Martyr Ariádnē of Phrygia. https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/1951/09/18/102654-martyr-aridn-of-phrygia

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