Martyrdom of St Polycarp
Tomorrow, the church celebrates the memory of Saints Nereus
and Achilleus, early Christian Martyrs of Rome along with Saint Pancras. We do not know a lot about each of them
except that they were honoured and remembered in the liturgy of the early Roman
church.
By tradition, Nereus and Achilleus were soldiers who converted to Christ and were martyred around 100 A.D.. Pancras was a 14 year old boy who was beheaded during the Great Persecution associated with Diocletian in 303 on the Via Aurelia on the way out of Rome for having refused to offer sacrifice to the Roman gods.
