Saint Nicomedes. Martyr. Feast Day, Today, 15 September.

Text from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
unless stated otherwise.

Saint Nicomedes.
   Martyr.
   Feast Day 15 September.

Simple.

Red Vestments.

"At Rome," says The Roman Martyrology, "on The Nomentanian Way, the birth in Heaven of Blessed Nicomedes, Priest and Martyr."

Having said to those who tried to force him to sacrifice: "For me, I only sacrifice to The All-Powerful God, Who reigns in Heaven", he was beaten with thongs covered with Lead and, during this long torture, he gave up his Soul to God.

He died in the First-Century A.D., under the Emperor Domitian.

Mass: In virtute.

The following Text is from Wikipedia - the free encyclopaedia.

Saint Nicomedes was a Martyr of unknown era, whose feast is observed 15 September.

The Roman Martyrologium and the historical Martyrologies of Bede and his imitators place the Feast on this date. The Gregorian Sacramentary contains under the same date The Orations for his Mass. The name does not appear in the three oldest and most important Manuscripts of The Martyrologium Hieronymianum, but was inserted in later recensions ("Martyrol. Hieronymianum", ed. G. B. de Rossi-L. Duchesne, in Acta SS., November II, 121). The Saint is without doubt a Martyr of The Roman Church.

He was buried in a Catacomb on The Via Nomentana, near the Gate of that name. Three 7th-Century A.D., Itineraries make explicit reference to his grave, and Pope Adrian I restored the Church built over it (De Rossi, Roma Sotterranea, I, 178-79).

A Titular Church of Rome, mentioned in the 5th-Century A.D., was Dedicated to him (titulus S. Nicomedis). The Feast of The Dedication of his Church on 1 June, alongside the 15 September Feast of his Martyrdom, were included in The Sarum Rite Calendars, but only the 1 June Feast Day was carried over into The Anglican Book of Common Prayer as a 'Lesser Holy Day' or 'Black-Letter Day'.

Nothing is known of the circumstances of his death. The legend of the Martyrdom of Saints Nereus and Achilleus introduces him as a Presbyter and places his death at the end of the 1st-Century A.D. Other recensions of the Martyrdom of Saint Nicomedes ascribe the sentence of death to The Emperor Maximianus (beginning of the 4th-Century A.D.).