Today in the Orthodox Church we celebrate the memory of the first ecumenical council.
There is really a lot that went on here, but I think on thing worth noting is that "of the 318 fathers, only 11 were free from such marks of persecution, whose name were Absalom, Bishop of Edessa, and son of Mar Ephrem’s sister, Jonah of Raikson, Mara of Dora, George of Shegar, Jacob of Nisibis, Marouta of Mepairkat, John of Goostia, Shimon of Diarbekir, Adai of Agal, Eusebius of Caesarea and Joseph of Nicomedia.
There is really a lot that went on here, but I think on thing worth noting is that "of the 318 fathers, only 11 were free from such marks of persecution, whose name were Absalom, Bishop of Edessa, and son of Mar Ephrem’s sister, Jonah of Raikson, Mara of Dora, George of Shegar, Jacob of Nisibis, Marouta of Mepairkat, John of Goostia, Shimon of Diarbekir, Adai of Agal, Eusebius of Caesarea and Joseph of Nicomedia.
But all the others were more or less maimed in their persecutions from heretics. Some had their eyes taken out; some had their ears cut off. Some had their teeth dug out by the roots. Some had the nails of their fingers and toes torn out; some were otherwise mutilated; in a word there was no one without marks of violence; save the above-named persons.
But Thomas, Bishop of Marash was an object almost too frightful to look upon; he had been mutilated by the removal of his eyes, nose and lips; his teeth had been dug out and both his legs and arms had been cut off. He had been kept in prison 22 years by the Armanites [Armenians] who used to cut off a member of his body or mutilate him in some way every year, to induce him to consent to their blasphemy, but he conquered in this fearful contest to the glory of believers and to the manifestation of the unmercifulness of the heretics. The fathers took him with them to the Council and when the king saw him, he fell down upon the ground and venerated him saying,
“I venerate thee, O thou martyr of Christ, who art adorned with many crowns.”
And to this day, there are still some among nominal Christians who, denying the church itself, think that they have somehow recreated the first century church that to this day is alive and well in The Orthodox Church, the very church that Jesus promised would not be overcome by the gates of hades.
