Saints Marcellinus and Peter
Martyrs
- Feast Day
- June 2
- Life
- d. 304
Saints Marcellinus, a priest, and Peter, an exorcist of the Roman Church, were martyred at Rome during the persecution of Diocletian, about the year 304. They are among the earliest and most famous of the Roman martyrs, named in the Roman Canon (Eucharistic Prayer I) immediately after Saints Cosmas and Damian.
The principal source for their cult is the epigram composed by Pope Saint Damasus I (366-384) for their tomb in the Catacomb of Saints Marcellinus and Peter on the Via Labicana. Damasus records that he heard the story of the martyrdom from the executioner himself, then converted: the two were taken to a hidden grove (called the Black Forest, ad Silvam Nigram) and beheaded so that no Christians could find their bodies, but were miraculously discovered by the noblewoman Lucilla and given Christian burial.
The Emperor Constantine built a major basilica over their tomb in the early fourth century, where his mother Saint Helena was eventually buried. Their feast on June 2 is one of the oldest in the Roman calendar, attested in the Depositio Martyrum of 354.
The naming of Marcellinus and Peter in the Roman Canon places them at the heart of the Mass's commemoration of the Roman martyrs. Their witness, especially that of Peter the exorcist, also reminds the Church of the ancient minor order whose ministry of liberation from evil spirits accompanied catechesis and baptism in the early Roman liturgy.
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