Sts. Felix, Fortunatus and Achilles

A whole community that stayed faithful to Christ when it cost everything.

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April 28 · Martyrs

Sts. Felix

Sts. Felix, Fortunatus and Achilles

A whole community that stayed faithful to Christ when it cost everything.

Traditional feast

April 28
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

April 23
Secondary source · Wikipedia

Represents

Martyrs

Early life

The book says little or nothing about early life. This is how the account begins.

Thin entry · the 1897 book gives only 0 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.

What they represent

How they teach us to live

Drawn from themes in the original account

Learn from the kind of life it was. A whole community that stayed faithful to Christ when it cost everything.

Keep their day. Remember them on April 28 with a short prayer, and ask for their help.

Read more

The full original · 0 words

Read Baring-Gould’s full account

Baring-Gould’s sources: Martyrology of S. Jerome, so called; Gallican and Roman Martyrologies, Ado, Notker, Ac. The notorious forger of the Chronicle of Flavius Dexter, knowing from the Martyrologies that these saints suffered at Valentia, coolly inserted in his chronicle, “ In Spain, in Valentia. in the year 255, suffered SS. Felix, Fortunatus, and Achilles, sent by S. Irenaeus to preach against the Gnostics." The Spanish and Portugese Martyrologists, Salazar, Cams, Bivarius, &c., have urged on this statement, and converted these martyrs into national saints, and their relics are exhibited at Valencia, according to Davila, B. of Jaen. Authority The Acts by an eye-witness, which, if not genuine in their present condition, are perhaps trustworthy in their general outlines. J AINT FELIX was a priest, sent with two deacons, Fortunatus and Achilles, into Gaul by S. Irenaeus of Lyons. They were overheard singing, “All the world shall worship thee, sing of thee, and praise thy power,” and were denounced to the governor Cornelius, who consigned them to prison. But escaping from prison by night, they entered the temple of Jupiter, and broke a very beautiful amber statue of the God that adorned it For this they were re- taken, and their heads struck ofE April *3.].S'. George.

Feast days

Feast: April 23
Traditional: April 28

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from Sts. Felix's story, and a nudge to keep going.

Also on April 28
G

St. George

April 28 · Martyr
I

St. Ibar of Begery

April 28 · Bishop
St. Adalbert of Prag

St. Adalbert of Prag

April 28 · Bishop, Martyr
← All 1726 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Sources

Credits

Image: F09.Charlieu.0039.JPG · Jochen Jahnke 17:41, 21. Apr. 2010 (CEST) · CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain.

Image: Jochen Jahnke 17:41, 21. Apr. 2010 (CEST), Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain in the United States. Reproduced unedited, except for short bracketed notes in grey that we added to explain names and terms (“S.” is the old abbreviation for Saint). Some history and judgments reflect 19th-century scholarship.