The Martyrs Manuel, George, Peter, Leontius and their companions were a body of Christians, including bishops, clergy, and laity, who were taken captive in Thrace and put to death for refusing to deny Christ during the wars between the Byzantine Empire and the pagan Bulgars in the early ninth century. They are commemorated together on January 22, and in the liturgical tradition are numbered as 377 martyred companions in Bulgaria.
The named bishops among them are Manuel, George, Peter, and Leontius; the synaxarion also names the presbyters Sionius, Gabriel, John, Leontius, and Parodus. The wider company, by tradition numbering 377, was seized during the campaigns by which the Bulgar khan Krum captured Adrianople and other Thracian cities and resettled their Christian populations within Bulgaria. After Krum's death the persecution of these captives intensified under his successor, and many were executed for their faith around the year 815.
Sources record that the martyrs were slain in various ways. By the accounts that survive, Manuel, archbishop of Adrianople, was put to a brutal death; George, archbishop of Develtos, who had been carried off with the population of his city, was clubbed to death and beheaded; and the priest Parodus was stoned. The historical record for these martyrs derives largely from the testimony of those who survived captivity, and the traditional number of 377 is reported by the Church's liturgical commemoration.
