The life of St Antony of Athens
He came at last into gentler service with a Christian merchant in Constantinople, where he was able to confess and receive Communion freely for the first time in years.
One night he dreamed of a woman of great beauty who promised him strength and covered him with her mantle, and he woke certain this meant he would be asked to give his life for Christ. The very next day a former master recognized him in the street and accused him, falsely, of having once converted to Islam and then abandoned it, a charge that under the law could mean death. Anthony would not save himself with a lie, and though officials tried at several points to let him go, pressure from the accusers pushed the matter to the sultan, who ordered him executed rather than risk unrest. He went to his death calmly, commending his spirit to God, and was beheaded in 1774. Christians bought his relics and buried him with honor at the Church of the Life-Giving Spring.
