PANCRAS, Saint, Martyr. - He is commemorated in the Hieronymian Martyrology on 12 May, and his tomb is indicated at the second milestone of the Via Aurelia. On the same date the Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries commemorate him.
Concerning the personality and martyrdom of P., the information has been handed down by a highly legendary Passio, probably composed in the 6th century by one of the presbyters assigned to the cult of the martyr in the basilica on the Via Aurelia, with the aim of making him better known to pilgrims. The son of pagan parents, he is said to have been born in a city of Phrygia; left an orphan, he was entrusted to the care of his uncle Dionysius, who took him to Rome. There, hearing of the wonderful conversions wrought by Pope Cornelius, uncle and nephew are said to have gone to the Pontiff to be instructed in the Christian religion; thirty days later they would have received Baptism, and shortly afterwards Dionysius would have died, while P. instead would have been arrested following a decree of persecution against the Christians issued by Diocletian. Because of his young age (he would have been 15) and his family situation, he would have been brought before the tribunal of the Emperor, who would have tried every means to induce him to apostatize and to spare his life. But P. would have remained always firm in the faith, indeed inveighing against and mocking the gods, to the point of arousing the wrath of Diocletian, who would have condemned him to beheading.
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Agostino Amore
TOMB AND CEMETERY
The martyr P., like many other Roman martyrs, was laid in an open area, in which, on the occasion of the renewal of the pavement of the present basilica, remains of burial cells were identified with the double rite of cremation and inhumation. Symmachus (498-514) built or enlarged the Basilica erected over his tomb (Lib. Pont., I, p. 262); Gregory the Great (590-604) delivered a homily there (PL 76, 1210) and founded there a monastery called of St. Victor or of Sts. Victor and P. (F. Schiaparelli, in Arch. soc. rom. di st. patria, 24 [1901], p. 450 n. 8). Honorius I (625-38) rebuilt it (Lib. Pont., I, p. 324), constructing the semi-annular confessio in such a way that the altar stood above the body of the martyr (G. B. De Rossi, Inser. Christ. Urbis Romae, II, Rome 1888, pp. 24, 156). In the basilica of St. P. the series of Easter stations comes to an end.
The underground cemetery, much devastated, developed beneath and around the open area. In an arcosolium a Greek inscription is painted in black with the date of the year 454 (G. B. De Rossi, Inser. Christ., I, Rome 1857-61, p. 527). Among the inscriptions, those of a group of Galatians in Greek are remembered, as is the other one of a BOTPYC XPICTIANOC. The cemetery and the Basilica, at the head of which was a praepositus, were under the jurisdiction of the title of St. Chrysogonus, as appears from two inscriptions of the years 521 and 522 (G. B. De Rossi, Inser. Christ., I, Rome 1857-61, pp. 440 and 442). In the cemetery the pilgrims of the 7th century venerated the tombs of the martyrs Artemius, Paulinus, Sophia with her daughters, Agape, Elpis and Pistis (G. B. De Rossi, Roma sotterr., I, Rome 1864, pp. 140-41, 183.)