Feast Day: March 24 Canonized: Pre-Congregation — venerated from the fourth century; feast in the Roman Martyrology Order / Vocation: Priest — martyr, Rome, Italy Patron of: Priests persecuted for the faith · Roman martyrs
What 300 AD Meant in Rome
The year 300 falls in the middle of the reign of Diocletian — the emperor who would, in 303, launch the Great Persecution that would be the most systematic attempt in Roman history to destroy the Christian Church. But the Church did not wait until 303 to produce martyrs. Throughout the third century the sporadic persecutions of Decius, Valerian, and their successors had regularly demanded the blood of priests and deacons and laypeople who would not apostatize.
Epicharis was a priest in Rome — a man with the specific sacramental office whose public role in the community made him visible, identifiable, and targetable. He was martyred in 300. The manner of his death is not preserved in the sources that CatholicSaints.info draws on: what is preserved is the office, the city, the year, and the fact of martyrdom.
He belongs to the great company of Roman priests who died in the century before the Edict of Milan — the men who offered Mass in the catacombs, who ministered to the imprisoned, who administered the sacraments in house churches and underground spaces, and who were arrested when someone informed or when a magistrate needed to make an example. His name entered the Martyrology. His feast is March 24. The Church has remembered him for seventeen centuries with the confidence that the office of priest and the fact of martyrdom are, together, sufficient grounds.
Prayer to Saint Epicharis
O God, who in Saint Epicharis gave Rome a priest who died for the faith he was ordained to serve, grant through his intercession that priests may hold the dignity of their office at whatever cost, and that those who suffer for the priesthood may know that the Church keeps their names even when the world has forgotten them. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Saint Epicharis of Rome, pray for us.
| Born | Unknown — Rome, third century |
| Died | 300 — Rome, Italy — martyrdom |
| Feast Day | March 24 |
| Order / Vocation | Priest — martyr, Rome |
| Canonized | Pre-Congregation — Roman Martyrology |
| Patron of | Priests persecuted for the faith · Roman martyrs |
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