Cyrus and John, Saints, Martyrs (CIRO E GIOVANNI, SANTI, MARTIRI)

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

CIRO and GIOVANNI, saints and martyrs. - Very scant biographical information concerning them is available. According to the legendary Passio, C. was a physician at Alexandria; having become a monk, he was killed in the persecution of Diocletian together with the soldier G., a native of Edessa. Their bodies were in the basilica of S. Marco at Alexandria when, in the first half of the 5th century, S. Cirillo transferred them to Menuthis

in order to oppose a Christian sanctuary to the temple of Isis, whose cult was deeply rooted among the people.

In the 6th century the sanctuary of Menuthis became famous for the pilgrimages and the healings performed there by C. and G., anargyri (v.) was attributed. An interesting collection of 70 miracles was compiled in the 7th century by Sofronio di Gerusalemme. The relics of the two martyrs were subsequently transported to Rome and placed in a small church on the via Portuense which, through a singular popular alteration, from Abbaciro is today called S. Passera; four other very ancient small churches were dedicated to the two martyrs in the Urbe.

BIBL.: Acta SS. Ianuarii, III, Parigi 1867, pp. 696-710; P. Sinthern, Der römische Abbacyrus in Geschichte, Legende und Kunst, in Römische Quartalschr., 22 (1908), pp. 196-239; L. Duchesne, Le sanctuaire d'Abouhir, in Bulletin de la société archéol. d'Alessandrie, 12 (1910), pp. 3-14; H. Delehaye, Les saints d'Abouhir, in Analecta Boll., 30 (1911), pp. 448-50; id., Les recueils antiques des miracles des saints, ibid., 43 (1925), pp. 19-32; C. Huelsen, Le chiese di Roma nel medioevo, Firenze 1927, pp. 151-62, 246-47; H. Delehaye, Les origines du culte des martyrs, 2ª ed., Bruxelles 1933, p. 223.