The feast day of Saint Flavian, martyr, falls on February 18. Flavian was archbishop of Constantinople from AD 446 through 449. Though he lived long after the traditional age of Christian martyrs, Flavian is nonetheless accounted one of their number, though he was slain by men calling themselves Christians--indeed, he died either during or in the immediate aftermath of a Church Council. As one of the principle parties at the so-called Robber Council of Ephesus, Flavian found himself on the wrong side of the powerful Patriarch of Alexandria, Dioscorus, and a veritable army of monks led by the Syrian archimandrite,...