St. Thyrsus, St. Leucius, and St. Callinicus, Martyrs

THEIR Greek and Latin acts agree that, after suffering many torments, they were put to death, on three different days, at Apollonia in Phrygia, in the persecution of Decius. Sozomen tells us that Cæsarius, who had been prefect and consul, built at Constantinople a magnificent church under the invocation of St. Thyrsus, with a portion of whose relics it was enriched. Another church within the city bore his name, as appears from the Menæa, on the 14th of December. In the cathedral of our Lady at Sisteron, in a church at Limoges, &c. St. Thyrsus is one of the patrons. Many churches in Spain bear his name. Silon, king of Oviedo and Asturia, in a letter to Cyxilas, archbishop of Toledo in 777, says, that the queen had sent presents to the church of St. Thyrsus, which the archbishop had built, viz. a silver chalice and paten, a basin to wash the hands in, with a pipe 1 and a diadem on the cover to be used when the blood of our Lord was distributed to the people.

Note 1. Cum suo naso. Du Cange, not understanding, this word, substitutes vaso. But nasus here signifies a silver pipe or quill, to suck up the blood of Christ at the communion, such as the Pope sometimes uses. Such a one is kept at St. Denys’s, near Paris. The ancient Ordo Romanus calls that pugillar which is here called nasus, because it sucks up as a nose draws up air. In the reign of Philip II. in 1595, in certain ruins near the cathedral of Toledo, this cover of the chalice was discovered with the diadem. Chatelain, p. 440. [back]

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