TRIFONE and RESPICIO, saints, martyrs. - They are commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on 10 November; the Greeks venerated T. alone on 1 February.
In reality, only of T. is there ancient and reliable information. Although he had died at Nicaea in Bithynia, the centre of his cult was in Phrygia near Apamea. At Constantinople, Justinian had built a church for him; he was also venerated at Rome, and in the 10th century one of the Crescenzi dedicated a church to him, later demolished in the 18th century, which during the Middle Ages was also a stational church, as is still noted in the Roman Missal on the first Saturday of Lent. The Passio is legendary and full of anachronisms.
R., on the other hand, is unknown to ancient hagiography; he appears for the first time, joined to T., in Roman documents of the 11th-12th centuries; and from that time a Latin version
of the Passio of T. was circulated, in whose martyrdom R. too is associated.