Felicissimus and Agapitus

Martyre de saint Sixte II et de ses diacres . (Cote: Français 185, fol. 96v. Vies de saints, France, Paris)

Felicissimus and Agapitus († 258 ) were two Christian martyrs and saints .

Felicissimus and Agapitus were deacons of Pope Sixtus II, who was also canonized . During the persecution of Christians under Emperor Valerian , they were executed as martyrs in 258 together with Sixtus II by beheading . Their bodies were buried in the praetextat catacomb on the Via Appia. Pope Damasus I had an epitaph attached to the tomb of the martyrs . He surrounded the original burial place with an elaborate framework architecture in the form of a false canopy . In the lower part of the canopy, Damasus had a marble inscription made. In the burial chamber there is also a small slab made of Phrygian marble on which the names of the two saints were carved. The bones of Felicissimus and Agapitus were given away by Pope Gregory IV to Abbot Gotzbald von Niederaltaich . The relics were subsequently housed in his church in Isarhofen . The marble inscription of Pope Damasus I was discovered in 1927 when the church of San Nicola de 'Cesarini on Largo di Torre Argentina was demolished , where it had served as part of the flooring.

A transfer of the relics to Vreden Abbey has been handed down for the year 839 .

The feast day of Saints Felicissimus and Agapitus is August 6th and 7th, respectively. From art there is a representation in the Stuttgart Passionale around 1120, which shows the two saints as deacons with Pope Sixtus II as cephalophores .

literature

• Erhard Gorys: Lexicon of the saints. Munich 2005 ⁶ , p. 109
• Ekkart Sauser :  Felicissimus and Agapitus. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 16, Bautz, Herzberg 1999, ISBN 3-88309-079-4 , Sp. 490-491.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Internet portal Westphalian History ; accessed on February 21, 2014