Longinus the Centurion

Longinus was the Roman centurion who stood guard at the Cross of the Lord on Good Friday and made the confession recorded by the Gospel: "Truly this was the Son of God" (Mark 15:39; Matthew 27:54). The Eastern tradition identifies him with the soldier who pierced the Lord's side with a spear (John 19:34), and records that a drop of the Lord's blood fell upon his eye — which had been diseased — and healed it on the spot.

After the Resurrection, the synaxarion records, Pilate sent Longinus on the assignment of denying the Lord's resurrection — and Longinus, having seen what he had seen, instead confessed Christ openly and was discharged from his command. He returned to his native Cappadocia, was joined there by two of the soldiers who had stood with him at the Cross, and lived a quiet apostolate of preaching the Resurrection in the towns of his region.

Pilate, learning that Longinus had become a Christian, sent soldiers to behead him. Longinus, by the tradition's account, received them as guests in his house, fed them, told them whom they had been sent to find, and at dawn knelt before them. His feast falls on October 16.