Saint Denis and Companions

Bishop and Martyrs
(died c. 258)

Saint Denis, known in French as Saint Denys, is venerated as the first Bishop of Paris and as the apostle of the Gauls, and his martyrdom together with the priest Rusticus and the deacon Eleutherius is commemorated on October 9th. According to the ancient tradition preserved by Gregory of Tours and other early writers, Denis was sent from Rome around the middle of the third century to evangelise the Gauls, and he established his base at Lutetia, the settlement on the island in the Seine that would become Paris.

He preached with great effectiveness and converted many, but his success aroused the hostility of the pagan priesthood, and during the persecution of Valerian or Decius he was arrested together with his companions. After a period of imprisonment during which he suffered various torments, all three were beheaded on the hill now called Montmartre, the Hill of the Martyrs. The tradition that Denis then picked up his head and carried it, preaching, to the site where he wished to be buried, several miles away, became one of the most widespread legends of the French Church and gave Denis the iconographic type of the cephalophore, the head-carrier.

The abbey of Saint-Denis, built over the site of his burial north of Paris, became one of the most important shrines and royal mausolea of medieval France, the burial place of the kings of France and the site where the Gothic style in architecture was born under the direction of Abbot Suger in the twelfth century. Denis was regarded as the patron and protector of France throughout the medieval period, and his name Dionysius was long confused with that of Dionysius the Areopagite, the convert of Saint Paul, giving him an even more exalted apostolic pedigree. His feast is celebrated on October 9th.