Primus and Felician
Saints Primus and Felician (Felicianus) (Template:It icon Primo e Feliciano) suffered martyrdom about 304 in the Diocletian persecution. The Martyrologium Hieronymianum (ed. De Rossi-Duchesne, 77) gives under 9 June the names of Primus and Felician who were buried at the fourteenth milestone of the Via Nomentana (near Nomentum, now Mentana).
They were evidently from Nomentum. This notice comes from the catalogue of Roman martyrs of the fourth century.
Burial
They appear to be the first martyrs of whom it is recorded that their bodies were subsequently reburied within the walls of Rome. In 648 Pope Theodore I translated the bones of the two saints (together with the remains of his father) to the Roman Church of Santo Stefano Rotondo, under an altar erected in their honour (Liber Pontificalis, I, 332), where they remain. The Chapel of Ss. Primo e Feliciano contains mosaics from the 7th century. The chapel was built by Pope Theodore I. One mosaic shows the martyrs St Primus and St Felician flanking a jeweled cross.
Veneration
Their feast is still observed on 9 June, but as the Acts recounting their martyrdom are considered unreliable, their cult has been limited since 1969 to local calendars.
Acts
Their unreliable Acts relate that Felician and Primus were brothers and patricians who had converted to Christianity and devoted themselves to caring for the poor and visiting prisoners.
Arrested, they both refused to sacrifice to the public gods. They were imprisoned and scourged. They were brought separately before the judge Promotus, who tried to convince each that the other had apostatized. This had no effect on the brothers, and the two were beheaded under Diocletian at Nomentum (12 miles from Rome). Primus was eighty years old at the time of his death. A church was built over their tombs on the Via Nomentana.
