First Martyrs of the Holy Roman Church

The Holy First Martyrs of the Holy Roman Church were Christians of Rome, men and women, whom the Emperor Nero had cruelly put to death after the great fire of the city in July 64. Their names are not known. The Church commemorates them on June 30, the day after the solemnity of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul.

The fire destroyed a large part of Rome, and a rumor spread among the inhabitants that the city had been set alight on the orders of the emperor himself. The Roman historian Tacitus, who was not a Christian, described in his “Annals” how Nero, to silence it, shifted the blame onto the Christians, who were hated by the populace, and subjected them to the most refined punishments. First those who confessed the faith were arrested, and then, on their information, a vast multitude of others. According to Tacitus, they were convicted not so much of arson as of hatred of the human race.

Their death was turned into a spectacle. The Roman Martyrology relates that some were covered with the skins of wild beasts and given to dogs to be torn apart, others were fixed to crosses, and still others were burned so that, after dark, they might serve as nighttime torches. Nero offered his gardens for this and held games there, while he himself mingled with the crowd in the dress of a charioteer. These gardens lay on the Vatican; in the circus there, beside the place where Saint Peter’s Basilica stands today, many Christians died.

Nero’s cruelty moved even the pagans. Tacitus noted that the condemned aroused pity, for it was clear that they were dying not for the public good but because of the cruelty of one man. Shortly after the year 96, Saint Clement of Rome, in his letter to the Corinthians, recalled alongside Peter and Paul a great multitude of the elect who had endured many indignities and tortures and had become a splendid example for the Church in Rome. He also wrote of women who, though weak in body, steadfastly finished the course of faith and received a noble reward.

The Roman Martyrology calls them disciples of the Apostles and the first fruits of the martyrs whom the Roman Church sent to the Lord. According to tradition, Saints Peter and Paul also died in Rome in the same persecution. Saint John Paul II recalled in 1979 that this was only the first of the persecutions, followed by others up to the time of Diocletian, and that the Church in Rome was baptized not only with water but also with the blood of the martyrs.

The First Martyrs did not go through a canonization process. The Church has kept their memory since the first generations: Saint Clement already held them up to the faithful as an example. Their memorial falls on the day after the solemnity of the Apostles, whose persecution they shared. In the prayer of the Mass that day, the Church confesses that God consecrated the beginnings of the Church in Rome with the blood of martyrs, and asks that their courage in the struggle may strengthen the faithful.