Monday, September 6, 2010

St. Sozon of Cilicia

I didn't know this when I was doing my research, but St. Sozon is primarily an Orthodox saint, and as far as I can tell, he's not really a big deal in the Catholic church. His feast day is today in the Orthodox church calendar.

St. Sozon was a shepherd in the region of Cilicia, which is part of modern southern Turkey. As he was tending his sheep, he had a vision of his own martyrdom. In order to fulfill the vision, he walked to the Roman-controlled city of Pompeiopolis. When he reached the city, he entered one of the temples and broke off the hand of one of the golden idols then distributed it in pieces to the poor. When the Roman officials discovered it, they arrested him and tortured him by forcing him to wear boots with iron nails sticking into the soles as he walked to his own trial. At the trial, they beat him to death and were about to burn his body when it began raining, and they could not light a fire.

Here is a lovely icon of him:


I think it is very interesting how the Catholic martyrs are almost always depicted with a symbol of their martyrdom (ie, St. Bartholomew and his skin suit). I think this is so you can identify the saint. Makes total sense to me. But in this icon at least, there is no evidence of St. Sozon's martyrdom. If there wasn't a little label next to his head that said "Sozon," I'd probably think he was Jesus or someone. And then I wonder if the average Greek person (or Orthodox, more generally) in the Middle Ages was more likely to be literate than the average Westerner. I have no idea.

Anyway, on to the outfit. I have no spiky boots, which would have been ideal. So I did red for fire, blue for rain, and gold shoes and accessories for the vandalized idol:

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