Saints Abdon and Sennen

Martyrs of Rome
(died c. 250)

Saints Abdon and Sennen were Persian noblemen who had embraced the Christian faith and who suffered martyrdom in Rome during the persecution of the Emperor Decius around the year 250. They appear in the ancient Roman Martyrology and in the Canon of the Mass in some early versions, testimony to the high regard in which they were held by the Roman Church from the earliest centuries.

According to their Acts, Abdon and Sennen were brought to Rome as prisoners together with other Christians captured during Decius's campaigns in the East. In Rome they were forced to appear in the arena, where they were exposed to wild bears and lions. The animals, however, refused to harm them, and they were finally killed by gladiators who were ordered to complete their execution. Their bodies were secretly taken by a Christian named Quirinus and buried in his house on the Via Portuensis.

Their relics were later transferred to the church of San Marco in Rome and subsequently distributed to various churches throughout Europe. A beautiful early mosaic in the church of San Valentino in Rome depicts them as Persian nobles in Eastern dress, one of the few early Christian images that preserves something of the foreign origin of these martyrs.

They are invoked as intercessors for those who suffer unjust imprisonment and for those condemned without cause, their own experience of being transported as prisoners to a foreign land and executed making them natural patrons of the unjustly condemned. Their feast is kept on July 30th in the traditional calendar and they appear in ancient martyrologies as among the most honoured of the Persian martyrs who shed their blood in the city of Rome.