Sts. Chaeremon and Companions

Sts. Chaeremon and his Companions were martyrs of Egypt during the persecution of the Emperor Decius in the middle of the third century. Chaeremon was the aged bishop of Nilopolis, a town on the Nile, who, already very old and frail, fled with a companion into the mountainous desert of Arabia to escape the fury of the persecution, and, though searched for by his fellow Christians, was never seen again, so that he is believed to have perished there for the faith.

His story is preserved in a letter of St. Dionysius of Alexandria, quoted by the historian Eusebius, which recounts how, in that terrible time, a great many of the faithful of Egypt died in countless ways — some by fire and sword, some by hunger, cold, and the wild beasts of the wilderness as they fled — all rather than deny Christ. Honored together with this multitude of unnamed companions who gave their lives in the same persecution, Chaeremon is commemorated on 22 December.