In one of the Munich churches are the remains of the Alexandrian physician Cyrus and the Edessian warrior John, executed in 311 in the Egyptian Canopus. Their life path combined free healing, preaching, hermitage and martyrdom.
Cyrus, who lived in Alexandria, gained fame as a healer who did not charge a fee. The Christian worldview encouraged him to see the causes of physical illness in mental trauma, and he accompanied treatment with a story about the Gospel. Many pagans, coming to him for health, were baptized. When Emperor Diocletian unleashed persecution, the doctor left the city and chose solitude in the Arabian desert, where he became a monk. There he continued to help people — already through prayer, gaining the ability to heal any ailments.
The soldier John, a believing resident of Edessa, went to Jerusalem during the same persecution. Having heard about the hermit Cyrus, he moved to Alexandria and then to Arabia. After a long search, the meeting took place, and John remained with him as a devoted disciple.
The turning point came after the news of the arrest in Kanop of the Christian Athanasia with three teenage daughters: 15-year-old Theoktista, 13-year-old Theodotia and 11-year-old Eudoxia. Fearing that their young age and fear of torment would force them to recant, Cyrus and John made their way into the prison and strengthened the prisoners. The local ruler, having learned about the secret visit, ordered the men to be captured. They firmly refused to sacrifice to idols and were tortured in front of Athanasia and her children. The women withstood the torture and did not break. First the mother and daughters were executed, and after them Cyrus and John. The bodies of all five were buried in the temple of the Apostle Mark.
The further fate of the remains is known from church sources: in the 5th century they were transferred from Kanopus to Manufin, then to Rome, and from there to Munich, where they remain today.
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