"In Christianity, a martyr is one who offers the liturgy by offering his body as a living sacrifice in place of bread and wine. His body changes into the body of Christ. His body changes into the Church, in every meaning that word bears. Did the Holy Apostle Paul not liken the Church to “the body of Christ”? Did he himself not say that the bodies of the faithful are temples of the Holy Spirit? For all these reasons, we honor their relics, since they have become a holy sacrifice....
The Apostle John makes man’s love for his fellow man the true proof of man’s love for God. He says, “If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also” (1 John 4:20-21). He himself connects knowledge of God with love when he says, “He who has not loved has not known God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8). A martyr, then, is one who dies while his heart is replete with love, love of God and love of his fellow man. Anyone who claims that he knows God and His decrees but kills and justifies it in God’s name is deluded: if he dies, he is not a martyr and has no connection to martyrdom."
+ Fr Georges Massouh on Martyrdom, http://araborthodoxy.blogspot.com/2013/07/fr-georges-massouh-on-martyrdom.html
