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Four Military Saints by Michael Damaskinos (16th century, Benaki Museum), showing St George and St Theodore Teron on the left, and St Demetrios and St Theodore Stratelates on the right, all on horseback, with angels holding wreaths over their heads, beneath Christ Pantokrator.

Triptych of the Bogomater flanked by Saints George and Demetrius as horsemen (dated 1754)

The military saints or warrior saints (also called soldier saints) of the Early Christian Church are
Christian saints who were soldiers in the Roman Army during the persecution of Christians, especially the Diocletian persecution of AD 303–313.

Most were soldiers of the Empire who had become Christian and, after refusing to participate in rituals of loyalty to the Emperor (see Imperial cult), were subjected to corporal punishment including torture and martyrdom.

Veneration of these saints, most notably of Saint George, was reinforced in Western tradition during the time of the Crusades.
The title of "champion of Christ" (athleta Christi) was originally used for these saints, but in the late medieval period also conferred on contemporary rulers by the Pope.^{[citation needed]}

Iconography

The military saints are characteristically depicted as soldiers in traditional Byzantine iconography from about the 10th century (Macedonian dynasty) and especially also in Slavic Christianity.^[1]
While early icons show the saints in "classicizing" attire, icons from the 11th and especially the 12th centuries, painted in the new style of τύπων μιμήματα (imitating nature), are an important source for our knowledge of medieval Byzantine military equipment.^[2]

The angelic prototype of the Christian soldier-saint is the Archangel Michael, whose earliest known cultus began in the 5th century with a shrine at Monte Gargano.
The iconography of soldier-saints Theodore and George
as cavalrymen develops in the early medieval period.
The earliest image of St Theodore as a horseman (named in Latin) is from Vinica, North Macedonia and, if genuine, dates to the 6th or 7th century. Here, Theodore is not slaying a dragon, but holding a draco standard.
Three equestrian saints, Demetrius, Theodore and George, are depicted in the "Zoodochos Pigi" chapel in central Macedonia in Greece, in the prefecture of Kilkis, near the modern village of Kolchida, dated to the 9th or 10th century.^[3]
The "dragon-slaying" motif develops in the 10th century, especially iconography seen in the Cappadocian cave churches of Göreme, where frescoes of the 10th century show military saints on horseback confronting serpents with one, two or three heads.^[4]
In later medieval Byzantine iconography, the pair of horsemen is no longer identified as Theodore and George, but as George and Demetrius.

Hagiography

In Late Antiquity other Christian writers of hagiography, like Sulpicius Severus in his account of the heroic, military life of Martin of Tours, created a literary model that reflected the new spiritual, political, and social ideals of a post-Roman society.
In a study of Anglo-Saxon soldier saints (Damon 2003), J.E. Damon has demonstrated the persistence of Sulpicius's literary model in the transformation of the pious, peaceful saints and willing martyrs of late antique hagiography to the Christian heroes of the early Middle Ages, who appealed to the newly converted societies led by professional warriors and who exemplified accommodation with and eventually active participation in holy wars that were considered just.^[5]

List of military saints

Image	Name	Martyrdom	Location
	Acacius	c. 303	Byzantium
	Andrew the General	c. 300	Cilicia
	Demetrius of Thessaloniki	304	Sirmium
	Emeterius and Chelidonius	c. 300	Calagurris in Hispania Tarraconensis
	Eustace
	Expeditus	c. 303	Melitene, Cappadocia
	Florian	c. 303	Lauriacum in Noricum
	George	c. 303	Nicomedia in Bithynia
	Gereon	c. 304
	Maurice and the Theban Legion	287	Agaunum in Alpes Poeninae et Graiae
	Martin of Tours	—[6]
	Maximilian	295	Tebessa in Africa Proconsularis
	Marcellus of Tangier	298	Tingis in Mauretania Tingitana
	Menas	c. 309	Cotyaeum in Phrygia
	Mercurius	250	Caesarea in Cappadocia
	Sergius and Bacchus	c. 305	Resafa and Barbalissus in Syria Euphratensis
	Theodore of Amasea	306	Amasea in Helenopontus
	Typasius the Veteran	304	Tigava in Mauretania Caesariensis
	Vardan	387	Armenia
	Varus	c. 307	Egypt
	Victor the Moor	c. 303	Milan in Italy
	Nicetas the Goth	372	Dacia
	Forty Martyrs of Sebaste	320	Sebaste

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to military saints.

• Christians in the military


• Patron saints of the military


• Saint George: Devotions, traditions and prayers


• Military ordinariate


• Military order (monastic society)

References

• Monica White, Military Saints in Byzantium and Rus, 900–1200 (2013).


• Christopher Walter, The Warrior Saints in Byzantine Art and Tradition (2003).


• Piotr Grotowski, Arms and Armour of the Warrior Saints: Tradition and Innovation in Byzantine Iconography (843–1261), Volume 87 of The Medieval Mediterranean (2010).

External links

• 
  David Woods, "The Military Martyrs" (ucc.ie)


• 
  The Warrior Saints (iconreader.wordpress.com) (2012)