A protomartyr (

Koine Greek Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...

, ''πρότος'' ''prótos'' "first" + ''μάρτυρας'' ''mártyras'' "

martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...

") is the first

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

martyr in a country or among a particular group, such as a

religious order A religious order is a lineage of communities and organizations of people who live in some way set apart from society in accordance with their specific religious devotion, usually characterized by the principles of its founder's religious practi ...

. Similarly, the phrase the Protomartyr (with no other qualification of country or region) can mean

Saint Stephen Stephen ( grc-gre, Στέφανος ''Stéphanos'', meaning "wreath, crown" and by extension "reward, honor, renown, fame", often given as a title rather than as a name; c. 5 – c. 34 AD) is traditionally venerated as the protomartyr or first ...

, the first martyr of the Christian church. Saint Thecla the Protomartyr, the first female martyr of the Christian church, is known as "apostle and protomartyr among women".Michael F. Bird, Scott Harrower, ''The Cambridge Companion to the Apostolic Fathers'', Cambridge University Press (2021), p. 183; see als
St. Thekla, Protomartyr and Equal to the Apostles (antiochian.org)

References

{{Expand list, date=August 2008 Protomartyrs