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St. Maruthas

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Saints and feasts

St. Maruthas

Bishop and Confessor

Maruthas was a Syriac bishop who gathered the memory of Persian martyrs and worked for the Church in Persia. Butler recalls his writings, embassies and links with John Chrysostom.

Sources

The life below remains the existing Butler-based reading, with its edition citation. The profile preserves the feast date and source title already listed in the library. Additional personal dates and historical details are shown only when separately documented.

Work remembered: Preserving the accounts of Persian martyrs
Butler records his collection of martyr acts, hymns and care for relics, alongside his work for the Church in Persia.

Butler sourceAlban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume XII (December), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; December 4, “St Maruthas, Bishop and Confessor,” pp. 98-100.

Butler’s Lives of the Saints (1846)Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume XII (December), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; December 4, “St Maruthas, Bishop and Confessor,” pp. 98-100.

The reading

ⓘ Butler source

Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume XII (December), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; December 4, “St Maruthas, Bishop and Confessor,” pp. 98-100.

Maruthas was a bishop and a learned father of the Syriac Church. Butler remembers his collection of accounts of the Christians who suffered in Persia, his hymns in honour of the martyrs and his care for their relics. His work helped to preserve the memory of communities tested by persecution.

He travelled to Constantinople to seek help for the Church in Persia. John Chrysostom recommended him to Olympias and asked her to support that work. Later embassies brought Maruthas to the Persian court, where Butler describes his efforts to secure peace and freedom for Christian worship.

The notice also recalls writings and liturgical works associated with him. His later years were spent again in Mesopotamia. Butler records December 4 among Greek and Latin observances, while giving different February dates for other Eastern churches. His service joined scholarship, remembrance of the martyrs and care for the living Church.

Historical note

An original Novena Regina reading adapted and summarized from the cited pre-1962 source. This is not a transcription of Butler’s words.

Butler records December 4 for Greek and Latin observance, February 19 for the Copts, and February 6 for Syrians and Melchites. Precise identifications of his see and individual disputed dates in the older account are not asserted in this adaptation.

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