Life and Confession
Meletius held the rank of stratelates, a military commander, over soldiers stationed in the Galatia district of Asia Minor. The tradition relates that he prayed against paganism and for the conversion of unbelievers, and that he and the soldiers under his command tore down pagan temples and preached the Christian faith openly.
The synaxarion preserves a vivid account in which demons, driven out, entered dogs that became frenzied and frightened the local inhabitants; Meletius and his soldiers are said to have destroyed these mad dogs along with the idol shrines.
Trial and Martyrdom
Meletius was arrested by the governor Maximian and refused to offer sacrifice to the idols. He was subjected to torture and died confessing his faith in Christ; one account relates that he died after being hung on a tree.
His companions met death in various ways. The tribunes Stephen and John were beheaded for confessing Christ; Theodore and Faustus were burned; the infants Kyriakos and Christian were beheaded after declaring Christ to be greater than Zeus. The accounts record that in all one thousand two hundred eighteen men perished, though some historians give the number as eleven thousand.
The Companions
A large number of named martyrs are commemorated together with Meletius. Among them are the tribunes Stephen and John; Theodore and Faustus; Callinicus, a former sorcerer; and Serapion, an Egyptian who is said to have become a bishop while imprisoned.
The women Marciana, Palladia, and Susanna (Sosanna) and the infants Kyriakos and Christian are named, together with a body of tribunes that the sources list as Sergius, Marcellinus, Felix, Photinus, Theodoriscus, Mercurius, Didymus, Festus, Marcellus, and another Meletius, with a multitude of soldiers and their wives and children.
