Martyrs Timothy the Reader and his wife Maura

Timothy and Maura were a newly married couple of the Egyptian Thebaid who were martyred together during the persecution under the emperor Diocletian (284-305), traditionally dated to about the year 286. Timothy served as a reader in the Church and as a keeper and copyist of the sacred books, and the synaxarion records that the two had been married only twenty days when he was denounced to the authorities. They are commemorated together on May 3.

By tradition Timothy came from the village of Perapa, also given as Penapeis, in the Thebaid of Egypt. He was esteemed for his piety and his knowledge of the Scriptures, and he was betrayed to Arian, the pagan governor of the Thebaid, as a teacher of the Christians. When the governor demanded that he hand over the holy books in his keeping, Timothy refused, answering that to surrender them would be like a father giving up his own children to death.

For this confession Timothy was subjected to prolonged torture, and his wife Maura, summoned in the hope that she would persuade him to renounce Christ, instead confessed herself a Christian and shared in his sufferings. According to the account both were finally crucified, hung upon crosses facing one another, and gave up their souls after many days, encouraging each other to the end. They are honored among the married couples who bore witness together, and a chaste, newly wedded pair who chose martyrdom over apostasy.