Saints Maurice and Companions

Saints Maurice and Companions were Christian Roman soldiers who, according to tradition, died for the faith at Agaunum in the Alps, today Saint-Maurice in the Swiss Valais, under the Emperor Maximian. The Roman Martyrology commemorates on September 22 Maurice, Exuperius and Candidus, their companions of the Theban Legion, and the veteran Victor.

We know their story above all from the account of their martyrdom that Saint Eucherius, bishop of Lyon, wrote between 440 and 450, about a century and a half after the events. Eucherius writes that the story was passed on to him by people who had heard it from Isaac, bishop of Geneva, who in turn knew it from Theodore, bishop of Octodurum, today Martigny. The year of their death is not known; dates from the turn of the third and fourth centuries are given.

According to Eucherius, the legion called Theban, made up of Christians, came from the eastern provinces of the Empire to support Maximian in Gaul. When the emperor, who was staying at Octodurum, wanted to use them to hunt down Christians, they refused. He then had every tenth man put to death, and when the rest did not yield, he repeated the decimation. In the end the whole unit was massacred. Another, anonymous version of the story speaks of a refusal to take part in a pagan sacrifice before a battle.

Eucherius describes how Maurice, Exuperius and Candidus, the commanders of the legion, strengthened the soldiers in their faithfulness. He also quotes their answer to the emperor: “We are your soldiers, emperor, but also servants of God, as we openly confess.” They declared that they would rather die than kill, and that they could not persecute Christians. It is not known how far these words reflect what was actually said. According to Eucherius, Victor, a veteran who did not belong to the legion, was also killed after he confessed, as he was passing by, that he was a Christian.

Many details of this account raise doubts among historians, above all the scale of the massacre, since Eucherius speaks of a whole legion, and the Theban, that is, Egyptian origin of the soldiers; a smaller unit may have been killed. What is certain, however, is the early cult. At the end of the fourth century the first church was built over the martyrs’ graves; its remains were uncovered during excavations at Saint-Maurice.

In 515 the future king of the Burgundians, Saint Sigismund, founded an abbey beside the martyrs’ graves, in which choirs of monks took turns singing the psalms day and night. The abbey, directly subject to the Holy See, still exists today; in 2015 it marked 1,500 years. In 1984 in Sion, Saint John Paul II recalled the faith that Maurice and his soldiers professed even unto martyrdom.

Their cult spread throughout Europe. In the West Maurice became the model of the holy knight, and he is venerated as the patron of soldiers. At Wawel in Krakow the Spear of Saint Maurice is kept, which Emperor Otto III gave to Bolesław the Brave in the year 1000. Saints Maurice and Companions have been venerated since antiquity, without formal canonization.