Marcellinus and Peter
Roman priest and exorcist beheaded under Diocletian, whose story Pope Damasus had from their executioner.
- Antiquity
- Italy
- Feast day June 2
- † c. 304
- Priest
- Martyr
Listen to the life 0:46
Damasus, as a child, had heard the account from the executioner himself, by then a Christian: Marcellinus and Peter had been taken to an untilled wood, in secret, so that no believer might find their grave, and made to dig their own pit before being beheaded. A woman, Lucilla, found the place and buried them on the via Labicana. Constantine raised a basilica there and placed in it the mausoleum of his mother Helena. Their names stand in the Roman canon of the Mass, and Einhard, Charlemagne's former secretary, had their relics translated to Seligenstadt in 827, under Louis the Pious.
