PROCOPIO, saint, martyr. — He is commemorated by the Greeks and Latins on 8 July.
According to Eusebius, he was the first martyr of Caesarea in Palestine during the persecution of Diocletian, but he is said to have died on 7 June. A native of Jerusalem, he lived in Scythopolis, serving as lector and exorcist. When the persecution broke out, he was arrested and taken to Caesarea before the judge Flavianus. Ordered to sacrifice to the gods and venerate the majesty of the emperors, he courageously refused, also citing Homer’s verse that it is better to have one king than several (Iliad, II, 204). He was therefore condemned to death and beheaded.
BIBL.: Eusebius, De martyribus Palaestinae, I: PG, 20, 1460-64; Acta SS. Iulii, II, Paris 1867, pp. 551-56; Martyr. Hieronymianum, p. 308 ff., 359; Martyr. Romanum, p. 277.