Holy Great Martyr Procopius of Cæsarea in Palestine and those with him

Procopius was from Aelia (Jerusalem) and, according to his Life, was first named Neanias and was a Roman officer sent under Diocletian to Alexandria. On the road he is said to have seen a luminous cross and heard a voice; he took the name Procopius, smashed the idols in his mother’s house, and refused the governor’s order to sacrifice. The Life says that soldiers who had watched him, and a group of noble women, were also put to death with him.

Historically, Eusebius of Caesarea, a contemporary, reports that Procopius, a reader and exorcist from Aelia, was the first martyr of Palestine, beheaded at Caesarea in 303 after he refused to pour a libation to the emperors, quoting a line of Homer: “let there be one ruler.”