Elias of Ascalon
martyr at Ascalon
Feast: 14 December (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)
Who they were
At Ascalon in Palestine, Saints Ares, Promus and Elias, martyrs, who, wishing to cross from Egypt into Cilicia to visit the confessors of Christ during the persecution of the emperor Maximinus and to bring them help, were arrested at Caesarea, cruelly deprived of their eyes and maimed in their feet, and then led to Ascalon where, by order of the governor Firmilian, they ended their martyrdom, Ares on the pyre, the others beheaded.
The miracles
There was never a formal cause: he has been honoured as a saint since before the Church's formal processes began.
Why that counted as sanctity
The Roman Martyrology remembers him on 14 December as a martyr beheaded at Ascalon in Palestine after being arrested on his way to help the confessors of Christ.
- Roman Martyrology, 14 December (Italian Bishops' Conference, Santo del giorno)
- Wikidata R0ee083d2 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
Checked against the sources listed on 22 September 2026. Corrections welcome.