Saint of the Day – 14 September – Saint Crescentius c292-c303) Child Martyr of Rome who died under the persecutions of Diocletian. Patronage – of Perugia and Sienna, Italy.
The Roman Martyrology reads today: “On the Salarian Road, at Rome, during the pwersecution of Diocletian, St Crescentius, the young son of St Euthymius, who ended his life by the sowrd, under the Judge Turpilius.”
Born in Rome, toward the end of the 3rd Century, into a family where the Gospel was lived daily, even amidst the most ferocious persecutions like that of Diocletian, this boy was born with an auspicious name, a promise of growth not only physical, but above all spiritual and moral.
Crescentius, was the young son of a Roman patrician couple who fled to Perugia in the persecution of Diocletian. here, the father St Euthemius died of natural causes but Crescentius was brought back to Rome to be executed on
the Via Salaria. He was eleven years old. He is sometimes associated with St George because he is shown stepping on the legendary dragon.
He was buried in the Cemetery of Priscilla on the Via Salaria. His place of burial became a focus of pilgrimage and veneration in the Middle Ages. In around 1058, his body was translated from Rome to Siena by Pope Stephen IX at the request of Bishop Antifredus. Other Relics were translated to Tortosa in 1606.
The only biographical source concerning Crescentius was derived from the copy of a manuscript dated 1600 and conserved in the Biblioteca Vallicelliana. His Acts were written long after the death of this Saint, probably around 1058, when Crescentius’ body was translated to Siena.
During the Middle Ages, Crescentius was the subject of a popular cult there and he remains an important Patron of the City.
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