page_title: Roman tomb, Brestovik
section_title: Saint Hermylus and Stratonicus
hierarchical_section_title: Roman tomb, Brestovik / Saint Hermylus and Stratonicus
caption_attribution_description: Мученики Ермил и Стратоник Константинополь. 985 г. Миниатюра Минология Василия II. Ватиканская библиотека. Рим.
context_page_description: Roman tomb in Brestovik is an ancient tomb, dating from c. 300, which was discovered in 1895 in Brestovik, today a suburban village of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. Though evidence points to the tomb of a wealthy local, popular belief is that the "martyrs of Singidunum", Hermylus and Stratonicus, were buried inside. As one of the most important monuments from the Roman period, the tomb is protected since 1948.
context_section_description: Roman emperors Constantine I the Great and Licinius signed the Edict of Milan in 313 which made Christianity one of the official religions in the Roman Empire. Licinius, who ruled in the east, soon clashed with Constantine so he outlawed the Christians again. According to the church hagiography from the 5th century, Hermylus, a Christian, was imprisoned and managed to convert one of his guards, Stratonicus. Licinius ordered for both of them to be tortured and drowned, so in the end they were put in one coffin and, still alive, thrown below the Singidunum Fortress at the Sava's mouth into the Danube, in 314 or 315. The coffin was stranded on the shore 18 stadia downstream, allegedly near modern Brestovik. Local Christians buried them in the brick tomb embedded into the hill. They were canonized by the Serbian Orthodox Church and their feast day is 26 January.
  This prompted clerics and theologians to conclude that the Roman tomb in Brestovik is actually a tomb of Hermylus and Stratonicus. Experts didn't find anything that would point to the Christian tomb. Furthermore, one of two discovered sarcophagi in 1895 was a "female" one, and it was apparently a family tomb for a man, woman and a child. In addition, Brestovik is much further from Belgrade than 18 stadia (c. 3.5 km (2.2 mi)).
  Despite protests from the experts, institutions and the owners of the lot, local clergy and worshipers entered the tomb in 2014, bringing icons, candles and flowers, and holding services, which partially damaged the monument. As the tomb leans on modern cemetery, the church offered to the owners to buy the lot from them so that an entrance directly though the graveyard could be build, but they refused. Supported by several professors from the Faculty of Theology, the church considers the tomb an "early Christian church", that third, unknown person, was also buried with two saints, and that local population removed the remains from the sarcophagi so that advancing Huns or Avars wouldn't desecrate the tomb.
  In 2016 local clergy started an initiative to build a church over the tomb. Serbian Orthodox Church again tried to buy the property from the current owners who again refused and the Institute for the protection of cultural monuments stated that the tomb is under protection and that nothing can't be built over it, regardless of the ownership, unless the Institute allows it. Church archaeologists claim that the saints were originally hastily buried in the Grocka's region of Dubočaj, a bit to the west, and then were reinterred to the new tomb in Brestovik when it was built. They claim that existence of the windows in the chamber prove that it was a room with relics and that one of the faint fresco figures is actually a Virgin Mary with Jesus, with two halos. Archaeologists disputed all this, saying that the image of Virgin Mary with Jesus was not yet used in that period and that absolutely everything discovered in the tomb shows that it is a "classical mausoleum of the high positioned member of an aristocratic family, [probably] an official or employee in the administration of Singidunum". The municipality of Grocka granted the permit to the Serbian Orthodox Church to build a church in Brestovik, but not on the location of the tomb as they can't do it without the Institute's permission.
  However, there are many stories among the local population about other tombs, still undiscovered, embedded into the hills, but no archaeological works have been done other than this locality. The entire area is actually a possible archaeological site with numerous embedded tombs. Only this one was preserved, which doesn't exclude the possibility that there are other, undiscovered ones.
caption: Depiction of the drowning of Hermylus and Stratonicus in the Menologion of Basil II
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