GALLICANUS, Saint, Martyr. - He is commemorated on June 25. Unknown to the ancient martyrologies, he was introduced into them by Ado. In the Liber Pontificalis, in the life of Pope Sylvester, a G. is mentioned who is said to have made donations to the basilica built at Ostia by Constantine in honor of Sts. Peter, Paul and John.
The namesake author of the Passio of Sts. John and Paul, the famous martyrs venerated in the basilica of the same name on the Caelian Hill, must have known that G. was a pagan, an army officer under Constantine, to whom he had asked for the hand of his daughter Constantia. She, during a military expedition, had him accompanied by her two [sons?] and only [ones?], John and Paul, so that they might convert him to Christianity. G. returned victorious and converted, but renounced the marriage and the consulate that Constantine offered him; he distributed all his goods to the poor and withdrew to Ostia to the house of a certain [name], whose house he had adapted as a hospice for pilgrims and where G. humbly performed his work. When Julian the Apostate ascended the throne, G. was placed before the alternative of sacrificing or leaving Ostia; he then went to Alexandria, where he met martyrdom. This whole account is certainly based on the meager notice of the Liber Pontificalis, but the hagiographer created a wretched jumble. He confused, in fact, the saints of the Ostian Basilica with the namesakes of the Caelian, and attributed to G. what in reality was done, but at Porto, by the panegyrist Pammachius, who was likewise involved in the story of Sts. John and Paul (v.). Neither at Alexandria nor at Rome did G. have a cult in antiquity; only in 1726 was the church of Trastevere dedicated in his honor by Benedict XIII.