Holy Martyrs Theodore, his mother Philippa, Dioscorus, Socrates and Dionysius of Perge in Pamphylia

Theodore was a young man of Perge in Pamphylia, conscripted into the army in the time of the governor Theodotus. When the military mark was put on him, he threw it off, saying he already served another king. He was beaten and laid on an iron grid with boiling pitch, but, according to his Life, an earthquake split the ground and water put out the fire.

Tied to wild horses and dragged through the streets, he was again unharmed. The priest Dioscorus came to believe and died on a heated grid; the soldiers Socrates and Dionysius followed Theodore into a furnace, where, tradition says, his captive mother Philippa appeared among them. The governor then had Theodore crucified, where he lived three days, and had Philippa, Socrates and Dionysius beheaded. The Church dates this to the second century.