International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Eirini Sophia Kiapidou
University of Patras, Patras, Greece; 
[e-mail]
Theophylact of Ohrid’s 
Martyrdom of the Fifteen Martyrs of Tiberiopolis
: 
A New Critical Edition
The Martyrdom of the Fifteen Martyrs of Tiberiopolis is one of the two hagiographic texts 
that Theophylact, the well-known Byzantine scholar and archbishop of Ohrid during the reign of 
Alexios I Κomnenos (1081-1118), composed drawing their topics on the local legacy of Ohrid. 
Apart from its hagiographic content, i.e. the life, the martyrdom and the miracles of the fifteen men 
who martyred in Tiberiopolis on the 27
th
of November in 362 and whose worship was widespread 
onwards among the orthodox populations of the Balkans, Theophylact’s Martyrdom provides a lot 
of information –often unattested in other works– about the history of the first Bulgarian State and 
Church. It may, therefore, be considered also as an important historical source for the region of 
Macedonia during the Middle Byzantine period. 
It is clear that with his work Theophylact wishes to place the local tradition of Ohrid regarding 
the martyrdom and the miracles of the Fifteen Martyrs of Tiberiopolis in the wider historical frame 
of Byzantium, beginning with the first Christian centuries and the persecutions by the emperor 
Julian (361-363), passing on to the christianization of the Bulgarians in the 9
th
century and reaching 
finally the 10
th
century, when Christianity had already been consolidated in the northern Balkans.
A new critical edition of the Martyrdom has been recently published, accompanied with an in-
troduction, Greek translation and extended commentary (see Θεοφύλακτος Αχρίδος, Μαρτύριο των 
Δεκαπέντε Μαρτύρων της Τιβεριούπολης, έκδ. Ε.-Σ. Κιαπίδου, [Κείμενα Βυζαντινής Λογοτεχνίας 8], 
Αθήνα 2015). In my contribution I shall discuss various aspects of the text, with special emphasis on 
its historical value in relation to Byzantine and local sources, its literary genre, as well as its relationship 
to Vita Clementis, the second hagiographic work of Theophylact, written in Ohrid as well.