MARCIAN AND NICANDER, Saints, Martyrs. - The information concerning them is extremely intricate. They are commemorated on different days and in different places, alone or together with others, as martyrs of Tomi and Durostorum in Moesia, of Thmuis in Egypt, of Venafro and Atina in Italy.

Without doubt the information concerning Italy was borrowed from the East; more difficult is the choice between Moesia and Egypt. Very probably it is a question of a single group of martyrs, and precisely of Moesia. In favor of this opinion stand the Syriac Breviary, used by the Hieronymian Martyrology, which commemorates them on 5 and 10 June, and the Passio (BHL, 6870-72), which is connected to a group of ancient, simple and authentic writings of martyrs of the Danubian regions. According to this Passio, M. and N. were soldiers; during the persecution of Diocletian they were brought before the governor Maximus and, despite every exhortation and threat, they remained constant in the faith, refusing even the military donative that was due to them. They were therefore condemned and beheaded.

Bibliography8 works

BIBL.: Acta SS. Iunii, IV, Paris 1867, pp. 213-23; A. Dufourcq, Etude sur les Gesta martyrum romaine, II, ibid. 1907, pp. 243-251; P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, I ss. M. e N. d'Egitto e gli omonimi di Mesia, in Note agiografiche, IV (Studi e testi, 24), Rome 1912, pp. 141-57; H. Delehaye, Saints de Thrace et de Mésie, in Anal. Boll., 31 (1912), pp. 270-72; id., Les martyrs d'Egypte, ibid., 40 (1922), pp. 54-60; id., Les origines du culte des martyrs, Brussels 1933, p. 249 ff.; Martyr, Romanum, pp. 224, 242; D. Mallardo, Il calendario marmoreo di Napoli, Rome 1947, pp. 69-71, offprint from Ephemerides liturgicae, 1944-46.

Agostino Amore

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Marcian and Nicander, Saints, Martyrs

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