The Holy Martyrs Marcian and Martyrius served in the Constantinople Cathedral. Marcian was a reader, and Martyrius was a subdeacon; both of them also served as notaries, that is, secretaries, to Patriarch Paul the Confessor (commemorated November 6). The Arianist heretics expelled and secretly executed the righteous patriarch Paul, and his chair was transferred to the heretic Macedonius. The heretics tried to win Saints Marcian and Martyrius over to their side with flattery, offered gold, and promised episcopal sees. But all Ariane's efforts were in vain.
Then the wicked threatened to defame them before the emperor, intimidated them with torture and death. But the saints firmly professed Orthodoxy, bequeathed by the fathers of the Church. Marcian and Martyrius were sentenced to death. Before their death, the martyrs offered up a fervent prayer to the Lord.: "O Lord God, who invisibly created our hearts and arranges all our affairs, receive in peace the souls of Your servants, for we are being slaughtered for You and are counted as sheep of slaughter (Ps. 32,15,43,23). We rejoice that we are leaving this life with such a death for the sake of Your Name. Grant us to be partakers of eternal life with You, the Fountain of Life." After the prayer, the martyrs bowed their heads with quiet joy under the sword of the wicked (+ about 355). 
Their holy bodies were reverently buried by Orthodox Christians. Later, on the instructions of the holy Bishop John Chrysostom, the relics of the holy martyrs were transferred to a specially built church. Believers were cured of many ailments here through the prayers of the saints, to the glory of the One Life-giving Trinity.