Saints Processus and Martinian

Processus and Martinian are among the early martyrs honored by the Church of Rome. An ancient tradition says they were the soldiers guarding Saints Peter and Paul in the Mamertine Prison at the foot of the Capitoline Hill. Moved by the apostles' preaching and by the miracles they witnessed, they asked for baptism, and Peter baptized them with water that sprang up in the prison cell. They are said to have helped the apostles and other prisoners, and were tortured and beheaded for refusing to renounce their new faith.

Whatever details legend has added, their cult is very old: a Christian woman named Lucina is said to have buried them on the Via Aurelia, and by the fourth century a basilica stood over their tomb. Their relics now rest beneath an altar in the south transept of Saint Peter's Basilica, close to the apostle who brought them to Christ.

In Rome the Mamertine Prison, beneath the church of San Giuseppe dei Falegnami, is visited by pilgrims who recall the conversion of the jailers. Their feast on July 2 is kept at their altar in Saint Peter's Basilica, a reminder that even guards and soldiers can become witnesses of Christ.