Saint Pancras
Martyr
- Feast Day
- May 12
- Life
- 289–304
- Born
- Phrygia
Saint Pancras (Latin Pancratius) is a Roman martyr who, according to a tradition recorded in the sixth-century Gelasian Sacramentary and the Roman Martyrology, was beheaded on the Via Aurelia about the year 304 during the persecution of Diocletian. He is said to have been a youth of about fourteen, of Phrygian birth, who came to Rome with his uncle and was baptized there.
Pope Symmachus (498-514) built a basilica over his tomb on the Via Aurelia. Pope Saint Gregory the Great preached a homily there on his feast (Homilies on the Gospels, 27) and sent relics of Pancras with Saint Augustine of Canterbury to the English mission; the church established by Augustine in Canterbury was dedicated to Saint Pancras, and devotion to him spread widely through the British Isles.
His feast appears in the Gregorian Sacramentary on May 12, joined with that of Nereus and Achilleus. The post-Vatican II reform retained him as an Optional Memorial on the same day.
Saint Pancras is honored particularly as the patron of fidelity to oaths, a tradition arising from the early custom of swearing solemn pledges over his tomb. His youth and steadfastness in the face of imperial threat made him, in patristic preaching, an emblem of the strength given by the Holy Spirit to those who confess Christ regardless of their age.
Patronages
children · oaths and treaties
Catholic Churches Named After Saint Pancras
5 parishes on Catholic Church Times share Saint Pancras's name. Find their Mass times, confession schedules, and adoration hours:
Sources