Ss. Cosmas and Damian

Cosmas and Damian treated the sick without payment, earning the beloved title of the moneyless physicians. Their medical care became a work of mercy and a way of bearing witness to Christ. They were eventually put to death for the faith and honored together as martyrs.

Their veneration is ancient, although the detailed martyr acts that survive were written too late to serve as a secure biography. That uncertainty concerns the later narrative, not the early and widespread memory of the saints themselves.

Christians honored Cosmas and Damian throughout the East, and their cult soon became powerful in the West. Their names entered the Roman Canon of the Mass, and physicians and surgeons have long claimed them as patrons. Their witness joins courageous martyrdom to a beautiful rule of charity: healing offered freely for the love of Christ.