Biography
Pharnacius of Satala
About Pharnacius of Satala
Pharnacius is remembered among seven brothers whose received story connects military service with suffering for their Christian faith. The Catholic Church in Norway describes the Byzantine synaxarion narrative as legendary, with motifs also found in other martyr accounts.
According to the Orthodox Church in America’s account, the brothers serve as soldiers in Thrace and refuse to abandon their faith when questioned. They are sentenced to exile in the Caucasus and die at different points on their journey. Pharnacius, called Pharnakios in that account, dies at Kordila.
The University of Balamand’s Bibliotheca Hagiographica Arabica gives Pharnacius a separate record, distinguishing him from the six other brothers. It supplies the Greek form of his name and links the collective account to Sinai Arabic manuscripts 417 and 418. Its approximate date of death is around 300.
The later history of commemoration is better defined than the details of his life. The Norwegian church account explains that Baronius added the brothers to the Roman Martyrology in the late sixteenth century, but that the 2001 edition omits them. The Orthodox Church in America commemorates them together on June 24.
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