Saint Denis and Companions

According to Saint Gregory of Tours, Denis was one of several bishops sent from Rome to evangelize Gaul in the middle of the third century. He settled on an island in the Seine, the heart of the Roman town of Lutetia, which would become Paris, and gathered a Christian community there.

During a persecution, around the year 258, Denis was arrested with the priest Rusticus and the deacon Eleutherius. All three were beheaded, traditionally on the hill north of the city that became known as Montmartre. A later legend says that Denis picked up his head and walked some distance while preaching. A shrine rose over his tomb, and Saint Genevieve built a church there in the fifth century; it became the great Basilica of Saint-Denis, where the kings of France were buried for centuries.

Denis became patron of Paris and of France, and "Montjoie Saint-Denis!" was the battle cry of French knights. He is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers and is invoked against headaches because of the story of his head.

In Paris, the Basilica of Saint-Denis honors him on his feast, and in Spain and Latin America the name Dionisio comes from him.