The life of St Therapon of Sardis
When the governor Julian brought him to account for his office, he refused to conceal that he was a bishop of the Christians, and for this admission alone was handed over to prolonged torture, dragged from one place of punishment to another.
Near the river called Astala, his captors drove four stakes into the ground, tied him spread out upon them, and struck him again and again. He was carried on afterward to the edge of the Satalia district, part of the territory under Sardis, and there, worn down by the length and severity of his wounds, he finally died. A tradition kept by the faithful holds that where those blood marked stakes had stood, living trees later grew, and that the leaves gathered from them were sought out by the sick, who found in them a means of healing. The Church honors Therapon as a bishop who endured a long martyrdom rather than deny the name of Christ.
