ON ST. CONON, MARTYR AT BIDANA IN ISAURIA,
A HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Conon, Martyr at Bidana in Isauria (St.)
[1] Isauria, in the ancient Ecclesiastical Notices, is a broad province under the Patriarchate of Antioch, situated on the Mediterranean Sea between Pamphylia and Cilicia, In Isauria to which Ptolemy assigned the maritime portion of the same. The metropolitan see of Seleucia there contained under it twenty-two bishoprics, among which was the city of Bida, whose Bishop Conon subscribed to the sixth session of the Council of Chalcedon. But the Greeks below call it κώμην Βιδανήν, the village of Bidana; and it is added in the manuscript Synaxarion of Paris that it was eighteen stadia distant from the city of Isauria.
Here both born to the world and, after he had entered into many struggles for the Christian religion, St. Conon lived: reborn to heaven as a Martyr was St. Conon, to whom the Greeks dedicated the fifth of March with solemn veneration, and among various hymns and odes they begin the eulogy of his deeds thus: Τῷ ἀυτῷ μηνὶ, πέμπτῃ, Μνήμη τοῦ ἁγίου ὁσιομάρτυρος Κώνωνος τοῦ ἐν Ἰσαυρίᾳ. venerated on March 5: On the same month of March, the fifth day, the memorial of the holy and venerable Martyr Conon who suffered in Isauria. And these verses are added:
Ἥκεις πρὸς ἀυτὸν τὸν θεὸν θεὸς θέσει, Ἐις γῆν ἀφείς σου τὴν κόνιν, Κώνων πάτερ.
Father Conon, having cast down thy dust upon the earth, Thou comest to God himself, a god by adoption in authority and power.
An allusion is made to his name, and to the authority or power over demons with which he was divinely endowed. This is indicated in this encomium.
[2] He lived in the times of the holy Apostles, a native of the village of Bidana, preserves virginity with his wife: the son of Nestor and Nada; when his parents gave him a bride in marriage, he chose with her to spend his life in virginity. They say that he was taught by Michael, the Prince of the heavenly hosts, both to embrace the faith of Christ and to receive baptism in the name of the life-giving Trinity, instructed by St. Michael: and to partake of the undefiled Sacraments; indeed, even to work stupendous miracles. Hence he persuaded his wife Anna (for that was her name) to agree with him in all things, and to persist together with him in preserving virginity. He had already before this led his own parents to the faith of Christ and to holy baptism, converts his father Nestor, later a Martyr: and had been the author of his father Nestor's taking up the palm of martyrdom for Christ.
[3] When idolaters were preparing sacrifices to their gods, he delivered them to a dark and infernal demon in a certain cave; and compelled them to acknowledge the God of all, with the demon himself publicly declaring that he was not God. compels the demons to confess they are not gods. Whence also an infinite multitude proclaimed: "One is the God of Conon." These words are magnificently preached to this day among the Isaurians in the celebration of that Saint. Moreover, he received such power and authority over demons that he assigned some to farm labor, encloses them in jars: and appointed them as guardians of the crops that had sprung up; he enclosed others in sealed jars, stamped with a seal, and placed them in the foundations of his house as it was being built.
[4] He came to martyrdom in this manner. When a Governor named Magnus was ruling that region according to the edicts of the Emperors, St. Conon was seized and brought before him; seized and beaten, and when he openly proclaimed Christ as the true God, he was atrociously beaten. But when the people rushed up to rescue him, the Governor, perceiving this, withdrew and fled. The people then freed St. Conon, wiped his wounds, freed, he dies: and led him to his own house, where after spending two years he departed to the Lord.
[5] They say that after his departure his house was converted into a church, and that those jars in which he had enclosed the evil spirits were found; when they opened one of them, thinking it contained gold because of its weight, immediately the demons burst forth in the form of fire, demons restrained by his prayers. so that all fell to the ground, and whatever had been built collapsed, and absolutely no one dared approach that place after sunset. But this tyranny was not long-lasting, for they were freed through St. Conon's intercession on their behalf, when they had devoted themselves to prayers, vigils, and fasts.
[6] Thus far the printed Menaea, with which the manuscripts of the Ambrosian Library in Milan and the Dijon manuscript of Chifflet, and those published by Maximus Bishop of Cythera, are in complete agreement. On what day his father Nestor the Martyr died, we have not yet been able to determine. Is St. Nestor Martyr of March 2 another from Conon's father? We gave from the same Menaea on the second of this month of March a certain Martyr Nestor, but one who suffered at Perge in Pamphylia under the Emperor Decius, who is not to be considered as having reached the times of the holy Apostles. Likewise, in the same persecution of Decius, another Conon at Attaleia in Pamphylia obtained the palm of martyrdom with others, concerning whom and another Nestor, Bishop of Magydos but crucified at Perge for the faith of Christ, we treated on February 26. Conon's wife Anna, who lived with him in virginity, is recorded on this day in the great Menologion of Virgins of Francis Laher.
[7] On the following day, that is, the sixth of March, Conon himself is recorded in first place in the manuscript Synaxarion of the Jesuit College of Clermont in Paris, and in somewhat more abundant phrasing; St. Conon on March 6. but the same things are transmitted more briefly for that day in the manuscript Menologion composed at the command of Basil Porphyrogenitus.