A native of Lebanon, from father Verrucius and mother Romilia, an eighteen-year-old young man, handsome in appearance and physical age, with reddish-yellow hair. A physician by profession. He suffered for Christ during the reign of Numerian. When he courageously confessed his faith in Christ the Lord before the judge-torturer, he ordered two executioners, Alexander and Asteria, to drill his knees with a drill, thread a rope through the pierced bones and hang him from a tree. But the executioners seemed to be blinded by an invisible power of God, and instead of Talaleus they drilled a board and hung him from a tree. When the torturer found out about this, he thought that the executioners had done it on purpose, so he ordered them to be flogged. Then Alexander and Asterius cried out in the middle of the whip: “As the Lord lives, from now on we too will become Christians, we believe in Christ, and we suffer for Him!” Hearing this, the torturer ordered them to be beheaded with the sword. Then the torturer himself took a drill to turn Talaleus’ knees, but his hands seized, and he had to beg Talaleus to save him, which the good-natured martyr of Christ did with the help of prayer. Then he was thrown into the water, but appeared alive before the torturer. (For Talaleus inwardly prayed to God that he would not die immediately, but that his torments be prolonged.) When he was thrown before the beasts, the beasts licked his feet and fondled him. Finally, he was beheaded with the sword and passed away to eternal life in the year 284.

Venerable Stephen of Pipera. Holy Martyr of Ascalon.