Marcellinus and Peter

Who they were

In 304, during Diocletian's great persecution, the priest Marcellinus and the exorcist Peter were arrested in Rome under the edict against the clergy, and beheaded in a wood outside the city, the 'Black Forest', afterwards called the 'White Forest'.

Their bodies were buried in the cemetery 'ad duas lauros' on today's Via Casilina, where the catacombs of Sts Marcellinus and Peter are among the most famous in the world. Pope Damasus wrote a poem for their tomb, and Pope Vigilius put their names in the Canon of the Mass.

The miracles

There was never a formal cause: Marcellinus and Peter have been honoured as martyrs since the fourth century.

Why that counted as sanctity

A priest and an exorcist gave their lives for Christ in the last great persecution, and the Church has remembered them at every Mass in the Roman Canon ever since.