Gervasius and Protasius, Saints, Martyrs

GERVASIUS AND PROTASIUS, Saints, Martyrs. - They are commemorated in the Hieronymian Martyrology on 19 June, the day of their translation into the Ambrosian Basilica in Milan. Their bodies, however, were discovered two days earlier in the basilica of Sts. Nabor and Felix by St. Ambrose in 386, while the struggle between the holy bishop and the empress Justina was raging. The discovery was recounted by the Saint himself in a letter to his sister Marcellina, and is attested by St. Augustine and by Paulinus the deacon and biographer of St. Ambrose, who were present at the event. The memory of the two martyrs had, however, until that day been almost entirely obliterated in the Church of Milan, and at the time of the discovery only a few old men remembered having heard their names and having read the sepulchral inscription. The time of their martyrdom therefore remains uncertain.

Only between the end of the 5th century and the beginning of the 6th did a forger compose a Passio, inserting it into a pseudo-Ambrosian letter and attributing it to a certain Philip, a contemporary of the martyrs, who was said to have arranged their burial in his own house. According to this Passio, G. and P. were twin sons of Saints Vitalis of Ravenna and Valeria of Milan. After the death of their parents, they sold all their possessions, distributed them to the poor and shut themselves up in a small house, where they remained for ten years in prayer and meditation. One day a certain Astasius passed through Milan, on his way to the war against the Marcomanni; the two brothers were denounced to him, and when questioned and invited to sacrifice they refused. They were therefore tortured, and while G. died under the lash, P. ended by being beheaded.

Agostino Amore