Today's saintAll livesOctober saints
LA

Devotional card

Ss. Lucian and Marcian

Saint-specific image not yet available.

This devotional card is shown because a saint-specific image is not yet available.

Saints and feasts

Ss. Lucian and Marcian

Martyrs

Lucian and Marcian are remembered as converts who abandoned magical practices, embraced baptism and confessed Christ during the persecution of Decius at Nicomedia.

Sources

The life below remains the existing Butler-based reading, with its edition citation. The profile preserves the feast date and source title already listed in the library. Additional personal dates and historical details are shown only when separately documented.

City remembered: Nicomedia
Butler places this pair’s confession and martyrdom in Bithynia, distinct from other martyrs named Lucian.

Butler sourceAlban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume X (October), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; October 26, “Ss Lucian and Marcian, Martyrs,” pp. 637-638.

Butler’s Lives of the Saints (1846)Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume X (October), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; October 26, “Ss Lucian and Marcian, Martyrs,” pp. 637-638.

The reading

ⓘ Butler source

Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume X (October), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; October 26, “Ss Lucian and Marcian, Martyrs,” pp. 637-638.

The account followed by Butler presents Lucian and Marcian as men who had practised magic before their conversion. A Christian woman’s steadfast faith and the sign of the cross are associated with their change of life. They destroyed their books, received baptism and distributed their possessions to the poor.

They first withdrew into solitude for prayer and discipline, then began to preach Christ to others. When the persecution of Decius reached Bithynia, they were arrested and questioned by the proconsul Sabinus. The narrative contrasts the freedom they had formerly enjoyed in their wrongdoing with the punishment now inflicted for their Christian confession.

Threats and torture did not induce them to offer the worship demanded of them. Condemned to death by fire, they went to their execution giving thanks to God. Butler places their martyrdom at Nicomedia and records their commemoration on October 26. Their story is an account of conversion followed by perseverance in the faith they had received.

Historical note

An original Novena Regina reading adapted and summarized from the cited 1846 edition of Alban Butler. This is not a transcription of Butler’s words.

The conversion episodes follow the martyrdom account cited by Butler. This Lucian of Nicomedia is distinct from Lucian of Antioch and from the priest associated with Caesarius of Terracina.

Carry this reading into prayer

Act of Charity

Ask God for love of Him and your neighbor, and carry this reading into your own life.

Pray now →

Keep reading

Nearby saint lives

Move through the calendar without leaving the saint library. These nearby feast-day lives help keep the reading trail connected.

Previous feast

St. Evaristus

October 26

Next feast

St. Frumentius

October 27

Browse October saintsBrowse all saint livesGo to today's feast
More prayers, novenas and litanies

More devotions

Continue in prayer

Choose a connected devotion or a clearly labeled general prayer.

Choose a novena

Find a novena for your intention

Browse existing novenas by the need you want to bring to prayer.

Choose a novena

Pray with all the saints

Litaniae Sanctorum

Invoke the communion of saints with the traditional Latin Litany of the Saints.

Pray the Latin litany

Keep learning

What is prayer?

Read question 1099 and its complete answer in the Baltimore Catechism.

Read the Beatitudes in Matthew 5