SS Marcellinus and Peter (304) martyred at Rome
Named in the Roman Canon
Marcellinus and Peter
are named together as martyrs in whose fellowship we ask to share in
Eucharistic Prayer 1 (The Roman Canon). Peter was an exorcist and
Marcellinus a priest and both were martyred in Rome under Diocletian
(304).
A church in their honour
There is also a church
and catacombs in their honour at the junction of the via Merulana (no
162) and the Via Labicana in Rome, not far from St John Lateran's
Basilica. It was said that it was here that Marcellinus lived.
Ministries in troubled times
Peter, the
exorcist, had been imprisoned by the judge Serenus for confessing the
Christian faith. Artemius the prison-keeper had a daughter Paulina who
was troubled by an evil spirit.
Peter being a person entrusted by the
Church with authority to cast out spirits was able to heal her.
On
seeing this, Artemius, his wife and neighbours were all converted to
Jesus Christ. Peter then brought them to Marcellinus the priest, who
baptized them.
Answering with Christian boldness
When the judge
Serenus heard of this, he summoned Peter and Marcellinus before him,
rebuked and threatened them, demanding that they deny Christ.
When they
answered with Christian boldness, they were executed and their bodies
abandoned in a place called the Black Wood so that other Christians
would not be able to bury or venerate their bodies.
Burial and veneration
However, two Christian
ladies, Lucilla and Firmina, came to know of this; they took the bodies
and buried them with honour in a crypt near St Tiburtius, who was
martyred some years earlier.
The emperor Constantine is said to have
built a church in their honour on the place and later had his mother St
Helena buried there.
The place where their bodies were found was
afterwards called the White Wood.
An epitaph by Pope St Damasus
Pope St. Damasus I
(366-384), wrote that when he was a boy, he learnt the circumstances of
their martyrdom from the lips of the executioner himself. Percussor retulit mihi Damaso cum puer essem.
He
composed an epitaph in verse for their tomb: it states that through
their martyrdom God gives us proof of his constant presence to his
Church.
A fragment of it survives in a nearby church.
The fact
that Marcellinus and Peter are mentioned in the Roman Canon indicates
that they were held in high honour from soon after their death.
Translation of their relics to Germany
In the
early ninth century, Eginhard, secretary to and biographer of
Charlemagne, became a monk in his later life.
In 827 he asked Pope
Gregory IV to send him some relics of martyrs to enrich the monasteries
which he had founded or repaired.
The Pope sent him the bodies of Saints
Marcellinus and Peter.
Eginhard located these relics at Seligenstadt near Frankfurt, where, in 829, he built a church and monastery in their honour.
In art
In art, both Marcellinus and Peter are depicted together, in ministerial garments, and bearing palms.
In the early 17th century,
the archaeologist Antonio Bosio (called the "Columbus of the
Catacombs") claimed in his book Roma Sotterranea that an ancient fragment he found represents Peter, Marcellinus, and Paulina standing together.
Cardinal priest of church
The Slovenian-born
archbishop of Toronto, Cardinal Aloysius Matthew Ambrozic, is the
present cardinal priest of the Church of Saints Marcellinus and Peter in
Rome.