Martyrs Quriaqos and his mother Julitta

Julitta was a young widow from Iconium in Lycaonia, of noble family. When the governor Domitian began persecuting Christians under Diocletian, she fled with her three-year-old son Cyricus and two maidservants, first to Seleucia and then to Tarsus in Cilicia. There the governor Alexander had her arrested. According to the Passion, the child, on the governor’s knee, scratched his face and cried “I am a Christian!”, and was flung down the stone steps and killed. Julitta was tortured and put to death, as the account says, c. 305. Cyricus is among the youngest martyrs the Church commemorates.