Elias of Heliopolis (759–779), also called Elias of Damascus, was a Syrian carpenter and Christian martyr revered as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox churches. He is known from a Greek hagiography. Dates The Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit places Elias' birth in 758 or earlier, but his vital dates are usually given as 759–779 and occasionally as 775–795. His hagiography says that he died at twenty years of age in the year 6287. This is an anno mundi (year of the world) date, meant to indicate the number of years since Creation. If it follows the Byzantine era, then it corresponds to the year 779; in the Alexandrian era, it would be 795. Robert Hoyland argues for the former on the grounds that it corresponds with the reign of al-Mahdī (died 785), said in the hagiography to have been ruling at the time. Life Elias was born into a Syrian Christian family of Baalbek (Heliopolis) in the ecclesiastical province of Second Phoenicia in the Abbasid Caliphate. There he was a trained as a carpenter. With his mother and two brothers, hoping to escape poverty, he went to Damascus. He was about ten years old. There he was employed by a Syrian Christian, who himself worked for an Arab Muslim. This Syrian was later persuaded to convert to Islam by his Arab employer. The Arab having arranged the marriage of his son, died shortly after. When the son's wife gave birth, he threw a party at which Elias was called upon to serve. The guests tried to persuade him to convert to Islam and thus become their social equal, but he put them off by claiming that a party was no place for such discussions. Ultimately, Elias was persuaded to eat with them and join in the dancing. Some of the guests loosened or removed his belt, supposedly to allow him freer movement. The following morning, Elias rose while the others were still sleeping, tied on his belt and went to pray. A guest who saw him going accused him of having renounced his faith the night before, which Elias denied. This accusation was probably based on the significance of the belt, which was part of the standard dress of a dhimmī. To remove it publicly was a sign of renouncing one's faith. In the workshop, his Syrian employer warned him that he had had to intervene to