Martyrs Hermylus and Stratonicus of Belgrade

Hermylus was a deacon in Singidunum, today's Belgrade, under the Emperor Licinius, in the early 4th century. Denounced as a Christian, he told the emperor he served an invisible God, not idols that see nothing. He was imprisoned and tortured.

His jailer, Stratonicus, was his friend and secretly a Christian, and he wept openly as Hermylus was tortured. When this was reported, he declared himself a Christian too and was beaten. According to their Life, when Licinius asked Stratonicus whether he wanted to die with Hermylus, he answered that true friends share both misfortune and good things. Both were wrapped in a net and drowned in the Danube, c. 315; their bodies were found on the bank three days later and buried by Christians.