DIOSCORO, saint, martyr. - Son of a Christian reader of Cinopoli (Upper Egypt) and a tax collector, he was arrested by the curator of the city and, having refused to sacrifice to the gods and to surrender the sacred books, was sent to Alessandria. There the Roman prefect Culciano kept him in prison for a long time; then, having summoned him for trial and seen him steadfast in the Christian faith, he subjected him three times to various tortures, to which he proved insensitive owing to an ecstatic rapture, and finally had him beheaded (305 or 306). During the tortures he did nothing but pray for the conversion of his executioners. Thus the Passio. Feast, among the Latins, on 18 May; among the Greeks, on 15 October.
The cult of D. has nothing to do with the pagan cult of the two Dioscuri, because its Passio (not later than the early years of the sixth century) is reliable in its fundamental outline.