Victor of Marseilles

An officer of the Roman garrison at Marseilles, he refused to sacrifice to the gods: tradition places his martyrdom around 290, under Maximian, but most sources refer it to the persecution of 303-304. The passion we have of him — late, and it must be said so — tells that he visited imprisoned Christians by night, that he kicked over the altar where he was ordered to offer incense, and that three of his guards, Alexander, Felician and Longinus, were converted on seeing him hold out and were beheaded before him. He was placed under a millstone; the stone broke, says the account, and he was finished with the sword. Tradition brings him from Egypt and links him to the Theban legion, which nothing establishes. What is certain is the reach of his cult: around 415 John Cassian founded on his tomb the abbey of Saint-Victor, one of the oldest monasteries in the West, whose crypt still stands and where green candles are still carried at Candlemas.