Varus

Saint Varus, also known in Slavic tradition as Uar, was a Christian soldier-martyr of the early fourth century, commemorated in the Roman Martyrology and in the liturgical calendars of the Eastern Orthodox Churches. The surviving accounts of his life are hagiographical rather than documentary; they place him in Egypt during the imperial persecutions of that period, which the Latin martyrology associates with the emperor Maximinus. Varus is described as a member of the Roman army who had become a Christian and who, while still in military service, visited confessors held in prison, bringing them food and consolation at personal risk.

According to the principal narrative, seven Christian ascetics or teachers had been arrested in Egypt and confined under harsh conditions. Varus attended them regularly. When one of the seven died in prison, Varus openly confessed the Christian faith and took the dead man's place among the remaining prisoners. He was then brought before the magistrate, refused to offer sacrifice to the gods, and was subjected to torture. The accounts state that he was suspended from a tree and beaten until he died of his injuries. His body was thrown out unburied, to be consumed by animals.

A Christian woman named Cleopatra, a widow whose husband had served as a soldier, recovered the martyr's remains. When she later returned to her own country in Palestine, she took the relics with her, buried them, and in due course built a church in honor of Saint Varus. A further episode, important for the later cult, relates that Cleopatra's young son died and was buried near the martyr. In grief she prayed at Varus's shrine and received a vision in which the saint appeared together with her child among the blessed. This story, preserved in the synaxarion tradition, became the basis, especially in the Russian Orthodox Church, for invoking Saint Varus on behalf of those who died without baptism, including infants.

Beyond these liturgical and legendary materials, almost nothing can be established about Varus by independent historical evidence. The precise site of his martyrdom in Egypt is not recorded, nor are his parentage, date of birth, or earlier career. His feast is kept on 19 October. Veneration is ancient in both East and West; in the Latin Church he appears in the Martyrology as a soldier who suffered in Egypt, while in the East he is often commemorated together with the righteous Cleopatra. No formal process of canonization in the later medieval or modern sense applies to him; his cult belongs to the early, pre-congregational veneration of martyrs.