Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessalonica

Demetrius is the patron saint of Thessalonica. His Passion makes him a young man of a noble family of the city, son of its governor, who taught the faith openly; arrested under Emperor Maximian, he was held in a bath-house and killed there with spears, c. 306. Historians note that his cult may first have been at Sirmium and later centred on Thessalonica.

In the 5th century the great basilica of Hagios Demetrios was built over the site of his martyrdom. A 7th-century collection, the Miracles of St Demetrius, tells how the city believed he defended it during sieges by Avars and Slavs. The tradition of myrrh flowing from his tomb made him known as the Myrrh-streamer.