Rev. Alban Butler (1711–73). Volume I: January. The Lives of the Saints. 1866.
January 31St. Serapion, Martyr in England
| HE was a zealous Englishman, whom St. Peter Nolasco received into his Order at Barcelona. He made two journeys among the Moors for the ransom of captives, in 1240. The first was to Murcia, in which he purchased the liberty of ninety-eight slaves: the second to Algiers, in which he redeemed eighty-seven, but remained himself a hostage for the full payment of the money. He boldly preached Christ to the Mahometans, and baptized several: for which he was cruelly tortured, scourged, cut and mangled, at length, fastened to a cross, and was thereon stabbed and quartered alive in the same year, 1240. Pope Benedict XIII. declared him a martyr, and approved his immemorial veneration in his Order, by a decree in 1728, as Benedict XIV. relates. L. 2. de Canoniz. c. 24. sec. 42. p. 296. | 1 |