CLEMENTE of ANCIRA, martyr. — He is commemorated in all the martyrologies on 23 January. According to the Passio, a rhetorical and ingenuously audacious work, he is said to have been born in 258; appointed bishop of his native city while still young, for 28 years he was persecuted and taken from city to city, subjected to the most varied tortures, but always emerged unscathed, until he was beheaded at Ancira on 23 January 304. In his honor Proclo delivered a discourse; the ruins of a church dedicated to C. still exist at Ankara.
BIBL.: Acta SS. Ianuarii, III, Parigi 1863, pp. 71-97; P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, Note agiografiche, VI (Studi e Testi, 33), Roma 1920, p. 162 ff.; H. Delchaye, Les légendes hagiographiques, 3rd ed., Bruxelles 1927, p. 90 ff.; id., Étude sur le légendier romain, Bruxelles 1936, p. 114 ff., Martyr, Romanum, p. 32. Agostino Amore