Centurion Longinus

Darkness of night is hushing all talking…
It’s rare to hear just a short phrase.
No longer sleeps Centurion Longinus
Never his eyes will close their gaze.

Lips now closed, hands tightly clenched,
Shreds of the days in the night dust.
Only thy cohorts of soldiers are there,
Who came to thee for thee for the last.

See, in the sky the "Night Hunter" flashed;
As a slit in Paradise is the moon.
You should have left, Centurion Longinus
How can they take your head from you?

But all had been solved and folded in order.
And In the Heaven and on the Earth
Do now your duty, ye — o, my soldier;
And I will do mine that is only worth.

That midnight guard was eternally longing;
Only a lamp still was fuming by steam,
To the Highest at morning hurried Longinus;
Two faithful soldiers followed him.

A road, again, aspires somewhere:
From cross to cross, and with a cross.
Thy soldier's way had been ended forever.
Thy journey with Christ will never be lost.

Days overstretched afar like the miles,
All bridges behind me were burned and leaved;
How to believe, o Longinus, guide me,
Centurion Longinus as you believed!

2025 Translation of the poem of Vladimir Korshunov “Sotnik Longin” (2019)
http://stihi.ru/2019/08/01/5897?ysclid=m9372gnho5103364201

It is believed that Centurion Longinus was serving on Golgotha, just when Christ was crucified. According to apocryphal legends, it was he who pierced Christ with a spear after the crucifixion. After that, the centurion became blind (as did the apostle Paul later) and regained his sight, believing in Christ. He left the service to his home in Cappadocia and preached there. When the Jewish elders learned of this, they persuaded Pilate to send soldiers to behead Longinus.
It was the soldiers of his cohort, Longinus' colleagues, who came for the centurion's head. For a long time they persuaded their comrade to leave the village, not daring to execute him. But Longinus refused and remained firm in his faith. After sitting with the centurion all night and listening to him, two of the soldiers who came for his head also believed and wished to be beheaded along with Longinus.
Their heads were brought to Jerusalem to Pilate and thrown outside the city wall. After that, a woman miraculously found the heads of the executed and was healed. A pilgrimage began to the relics and the recovered heads of the martyrs. As a result, the exact opposite effect of what the Jewish elders were trying to achieve was achieved - instead of oblivion, more and more new people came to the Christian faith.
Today, Centurion Longinus and two of his companions are canonized as holy martyrs, both in the Eastern and Western traditions.