St. Denis

St. Denis, also called Dionysius, was, according to the early witness of St. Gregory of Tours, one of several bishops sent from Rome to evangelize Gaul in the third century, becoming the first bishop of Paris. He preached the Gospel with such success on the island in the Seine that the pagan authorities, alarmed at his growing flock, had him arrested and, after imprisonment, beheaded on the hill north of the city, together with the priest Rusticus and the deacon Eleutherius, about the year 250 or 258.

The hill of his martyrdom came to be called Montmartre, the mount of the martyr, and over his tomb rose the great Abbey of Saint-Denis, the burial place of the kings of France. A celebrated later legend, not part of the earliest accounts, holds that after his beheading he took up his own head and walked, preaching, to the place of his burial, and for this reason Christian art depicts him carrying his head. Long venerated as a patron of France and one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, he is celebrated on 9 October.