Lucillian and his Companions

Lucillian was an aged pagan priest of Byzantium during the persecution of the Emperor Aurelian (270–275). Converted in his old age through the witness of Christians of the city, he was baptized and lived openly as a believer, his white hair lending its own weight to his confession. He was eventually denounced and brought before the prefect Silvanus.

Imprisoned with him were four young Christians — Claudius, Hypatius, Paul, and Dionysius — who had received baptism in turn from his hands. The prefect, hoping to use the old man as a means to break the youths, threatened him with the most savage torments and Lucillian with the most tender appeals; when neither approach moved any of them, all five were taken outside the city to be crucified. Lucillian, as the eldest, was placed on the cross with the youths around him.

According to the synaxarion, a sudden hailstorm threw the executioners and the watching crowd into confusion, and many fled. When the storm passed, the bodies of the four youths were lifeless on their crosses but Lucillian remained alive — and Silvanus, when he heard, ordered him taken down and beheaded with the sword. A virgin named Paula, who had visited the prisoners in jail and ministered to them in the days before their execution, was also arrested afterward, scourged, and at last martyred.

Their feast is kept together on June 3.