Saints Sadoth et ses compagnons
Martyrs à Beth Lapat en Syrie (✝ 342)
ou Schadost.
Sadok ou Sadoth en Perse, également fêté le 19 octobre.
Evêque martyrisé avec 128 de ses fidèles, prêtres, diacres, moines, hommes et femmes. Après cinq mois d'emprisonnement dans les fers, ils furent invités à adorer le soleil. Devant leur refus unanime, "Nous n'annonçons qu'un seul Dieu et le servons de toute notre âme", ils furent tous décapités, les uns après les autres.
Sadoth a participé au concile de Nicée en 325 et dirigea l’Église lors de la persécution du dirigeant perse Shapur II. Nommé évêque de Ctésiphon, en Perse, en 341, il est arrêté un an plus tard et comparaît devant le roi des Perses qui fait aussi saisir cent vingt-huit membres de son Église, des prêtres, des moines et des vierges consacrées. Enchaînés, torturés, tous refusent d'apostasier. Sur le lieu de leur supplice, ils chantent et louent le Seigneur, jusqu'à la mort du dernier d'entre eux. Sadoth, lui, est conduit dans une autre ville où il est publiquement décapité.
L'hagiographie de l’Église chaldéenne les exalte parce qu'ils préférèrent le Christ au culte du soleil et pour cela furent décapités les uns après les autres.
À Beth Lapat dans le royaume perse, en 342, la passion des saints martyrs Sadoth, évêque de Séleucie et Ctésiphon, et cent-vingt-huit compagnons, prêtres, clercs et vierges consacrées, qui refusèrent d’adorer le soleil et pour cela furent chargés de chaînes, soumis très longtemps à toutes sortes de tourments terribles et enfin, après la sentence du roi, mis à mort.
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Mgr Mirkis: "En soutenant les jeunes, nous les maintenons dans le pays. Il y aura ainsi des médecins, des pharmaciens et architectes, des ingénieurs"
Martyrologe romain
Sadoth BM & Comp. MM (RM)
(also known as Shahdost, Schadost, Schiadustes)
Died c. 342. Sadoth, meaning friend of the king in Persian, succeeded Saint Simeon Barsabba'e as bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the two main cities of Persia situated on the Tigris River. A new persecution of Christians by King Shapur II began soon after his election. Sadoth and his clergy hid, although they remained in close contact with their flock. During this time, Sadoth had a vision the God was calling him to shed his blood. He called his clergy together to relate the message: "I saw in my sleep, a ladder environed with light and reaching from earth to the heavens. Saint Simeon was at the top of it, and in great glory. He beheld me at the bottom, and said to me, with a smiling countenance: 'Mount up, Sadoth, fear not. I mounted yesterday, and it is your turn today': which means, that as he was slain last year, so I am to follow him this." He urged them to serve God with increased zeal to ensure they were ready to take possession of their inheritance. They did not seek death be were ready to embrace it.
Saint Maruthas, who wrote Sadoth's acta, meditated: "A man that is guided by the Spirit, fears not death. He loves God, and goes to him with an incredible ardor; but he who lives according to the desires of the flesh, trembles, and is in despair at its approach: he loves the world, and it is with grief that he leaves it."
During the second year of the persecution, Sadoth and 128 others were arrested. Most of these were martyred immediately after their arrest, but Sadoth and eight others were detained for five months in a filthy dungeon at Bei-Lapat and tortured before being executed. Three times they were racked and questioned. Amid the sound of bones being broken and urgings to apostatize, Sadoth answered in the name of all, that the sun was but a creature, the work of God, made for the good of mankind; that they would pay supreme adoration to none but the Creator of heaven and earth, and never be unfaithful to him; that it was indeed in their power to take away their lives, but that this would be the greatest favor they could do them. And the soldiers urged them to renounce Christ.
As with one voice the martyrs cried: "We shall not die, but live and reign eternally with God and his Son Jesus Christ. Kill us as soon as you please; for we repeat it to you that we will not adore the sun." The king sentenced them to death. The martyrs thanked God and encouraged one another. They were chained two and two together, and led out of the city to execution, singing psalms and canticles of joy as they went. At the place of their martyrdom they sang louder and even more joyfully, giving thanks to God for his mercy, and begging for the grace of perseverance and that by this baptism of their blood they might enter into his glory. These prayers and praises of God did not cease but until the last of this blessed company was beheaded.
Shapur II ordered that Sadoth be separated from his flock and sent into the province of the Huzites, where he was beheaded and rejoined his happy flock in the kingdom of glory. Ancient Chaldaic writers quoted by Assemani say that Simeon Barsabba'e was Sadoth's maternal uncle (Attwater, Benedictines, Husenbeth). In art, Saint Simeon appears on a ladder and invites Sadoth to ascend to heaven (Roeder).