Saints Pothinus, Blandina and Companions

Saints Pothinus, Blandina and Companions are martyrs of the Churches of Lyon and Vienne in Roman Gaul, who gave their lives for the faith in 177, during the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. The Roman Martyrology commemorates Bishop Pothinus and Blandina with forty-six companions on June 2.

We know their story from a letter that these two Churches sent to the brethren in Asia and Phrygia; Eusebius of Caesarea preserved it in his “Ecclesiastical History.” Among the faithful were newcomers from Asia Minor, such as Attalus of Pergamum and the physician Alexander from Phrygia. The persecution began with the hatred of the mob: Christians were shut out of houses, baths and the marketplace, and then they began to be arrested and brought before the governor.

Bishop Pothinus was over ninety years old and could barely breathe for weakness. Asked by the governor who the God of the Christians was, he replied, “If you are worthy, you will know.” The crowd beat him and threw at him whatever came to hand, and two days later he died in prison. The deacon Sanctus of Vienne answered every question about his name and origin only in Latin: “I am a Christian.” John Paul II recalled these words in 1986 in the Amphitheater of the Three Gauls in Lyon, the place of their martyrdom.

Blandina was a slave; her mistress too was among the martyrs. The brethren feared that frail Blandina would not hold out, yet she endured torture from morning to evening, until her torturers admitted that they did not know what more they could do to her. She kept repeating, “I am a Christian, and nothing evil is done among us.” In the amphitheater she was bound to a stake to be devoured by beasts. She hung as if on a cross and prayed, and her companions saw in her the Crucified One.

The emperor ordered that those who confessed the faith be put to death and that those who denied it be set free. During a public festival, those who held Roman citizenship were beheaded and the rest were thrown to the beasts; others died in prison. On the last day of the games Blandina strengthened Ponticus, a boy of about fifteen, who persevered to the end. She herself died last: after the scourging and the red-hot iron chair she was thrown in a net to a bull, and at last she was killed with the sword. The bodies of the martyrs were burned and their ashes thrown into the Rhône.

The prisoners would not let themselves be called martyrs: they gave that name only to those who had already given their lives. They prayed for their torturers and supported the brethren who had fallen. They also commended the presbyter Irenaeus to Pope Eleutherius, and Irenaeus carried the community’s letter to Rome. The journey saved him from the persecution, and on his return he became the successor of Pothinus.

The martyrs of Lyon have been venerated since antiquity, without a formal canonization. Benedict XVI, speaking in 2007 about Saint Irenaeus, mentioned at least forty-eight martyrs, among them the ninety-year-old Bishop Pothinus. John Paul II said in Lyon that their witness belongs to all Christians and to all the Churches.