The First Martyrs of the Holy Roman Church

The First Martyrs of the Holy Roman Church are the Christians of Rome who were put to death in the earliest and most savage of the imperial persecutions, that of the Emperor Nero in the year 64. After a great fire destroyed much of the city, Nero, to divert from himself the suspicion that he had caused it, fixed the blame upon the Christians and subjected them to a cruel and spectacular slaughter, as the Roman historian Tacitus himself records.

These faithful, many of them converted by the preaching of the apostles Peter and Paul, were made a public entertainment: some were covered in the skins of beasts and torn by dogs, some were crucified, and some were burned as living torches to light Nero's gardens by night. They died with such constancy that even their pagan persecutors were moved to pity. Honored as the flower of the Roman Church watered by their blood, and fittingly commemorated the day after the feast of Peter and Paul, these nameless martyrs are remembered on 30 June.