Rome, AD 258; Mosul, Iraq, AD 2007
Today the Church honours St Sixtus II and Companions , martyred in Rome on 6 August AD 258. Sixtus had been pope for just under a year. We can read about the deaths of these martyrs in the Office of Readings which includes an extract from a letter of St Cyprian: Know that Sixtus and four of the deacons were beheaded in the cemetery on 6 August. Moreover, the Prefects of the City are pursuing the persecution relentlessly; if any suspected Christians are brought before them they will be executed and their property confiscated . The six deacons were Januarius, Vincentius, Magnus, Stephanus, Felicissimus and Agapitus . Four days later the great St Laurence of Rome , another deacon, was martyred. The names of Sts Sixtus, Cyprian and Laurence appear in the Roman Canon (Eucharistic Prayer I). I wonder did St Cyprian, as he wrote, have any inkling of the fact that he too would be beheaded in the same persecution under the Emperor Valerian, on 14 September that same yea