Sargis the General

Sargis the General
Sarkis is usually depicted on a white horse.
Died362 or 363
Venerated inOriental Orthodoxy
Armenian Catholic Church
Assyrian Church of the East[1]
Major shrineSaint Sarkis Monastery of Ushi
Feast63 days before Easter
(moveable feast)
PatronageYouth and love

Saint Sargis the General or Sergius Stratelates (Armenian: Սուրբ Սարգիս Զորավար, romanizedSourb Sargis Zoravar;[a] died 362/3) is revered as a martyr and military saint in the Armenian Apostolic Church and Assyrian Church of the East (January 5). The name Sargis (Sarkis) is the Armenian form of Sergius (Sergios).[2]

Sargis was a general (stratelates) in the Roman Army stationed in Cappadocia. He went into exile in Persia during the reign of the pagan Roman emperor Julian. There he fell foul of Shah Shapur II and was killed along with his son, Martiros, during Shapur's Forty-Year Persecution.[2]

Sargis the General is not to be confused with Sergius, the companion of Bacchus, who was martyred in the Roman Empire early in the fourth century. An Armenian hagiography of Sergius and Bacchus also exists.[2][3]

  1. ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20060626005136/http://www.cired.org/liturgy/1person.html
  2. ^ a b c S. Peter Cowe, "Armenian Hagiography", in The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography (Routledge, 2011), Vol. 1, pp. 312–13.
  3. ^ Jean Michel Thierry, Monuments arméniens du Vaspurakan (Libraire Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1989), p. 508.


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