Hieromartyr Mocius the Presbyter of Amphipolis in Macedonia

Mocius was a presbyter of Amphipolis in Macedonia under Diocletian. During a festival of Dionysus he stood up in the crowd and called on the people to abandon the god, and he went on preaching day after day until the proconsul Laodicius had him arrested.

His Passion tells of many tortures and of wild beasts that refused to touch him, so that the crowd shouted for the release of a just man 'whom even the beasts honour'. He was sent on to Perinthus in Thrace and then to Byzantium, where he was beheaded on 11 May, c. 295. Emperor Constantine later built a church in his honour in the city.