Athenogenes of Pedachtoë

Athenogenes (, d. 303 CE) or Saint Athenogenes of Pedachtoë was a priest, chorepiskopos (or "rural bishop"), and Christian martyr of the late 3rd or early 4th century CE, and the leader of a Christian community in the town of Pedachtoë.

Life Athenogenes was said to have been born to a Christian family in the Black Sea Region of what is now Turkey, in an obscure village called "Epiklesoi", under the city of Sebastopolis (modern Sulusaray) or Sebastea (modern Sivas). He was married and had a son, Patrophilos. He is presented as a miracle-working holy man in his early hagiographies. The cult around this figure formed comparatively early, as he is described by people writing only a few decades after his death, such as Basil of Caesarea.

The earliest version of his life that we have is a hagiography of Anysius titled Passion of Athenogenes of Pedachthoe, and preserved in a 10th-century manuscript, Codex Sabaiticus 242, which is currently in the collection of the Patriarchal Library in Jerusalem. Scholars date the composition of the story to around the 6th century CE. This account is considered unusual among hagiographies in that it gives what scholars say is a fairly realistic account of the court proceedings against Ariston, Severianos, and Athenogenes, and it is assumed this is likely constructed from some original transcript passed down rather than a purely literary creation.

Monuments and relics At the time the early hagiography was written, there was apparently a church on the site where Athenogenes had been killed. There was also a shrine to him in Pedachtoë, built atop the octagonal subterranean crypt Athenogenes had constructed to house the remains of some Christian martyrs, and to which, apparently, his own remains had been taken from Sebastea.