St. Alexander

Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

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September 21 · Bishop, Martyr

St. Alexander

St. Alexander

Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

Traditional feast

September 21
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

March 18 (also listed: May 16, December 12)
Secondary source · Wikipedia

Represents

Bishop
Martyr

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. Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

Keep their day. Remember them on September 21 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: Roman Martyrology. The Martyrologium Parvum and Ado on Nov. 26, on which day Pope Damasus appointed his festival to be observed. Ado also on Oct. 21. Authority: — The Acts, pretending to be by an eyewitness, are a forgery, and undeserving of the smallest respect.] The acts of this Saint being an impudent forgery, are unworthy of trust. But the final scene is perhaps true. It stands out in marked contrast with the rest of the narrative, and has an air of truth about it unlike the trash which surrounds it. Alexander the bishop was ordered by the emperor Marcus Aurelius to be executed on the Claudian Way outside Rome. When he came to the spot where he was to suffer, he found that he was without a handkerchief, he therefore borrowed one of an old woman; and then, having taken off his tunic, standing in his linen dress, “in linea stans,” he tied the handkerchief over his eyes, knelt down, and received the stroke of the executioner’s sword without a word.

Feast days

Feast: March 18
Traditional: September 21

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

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

Also on September 21
St. Matthew, Evang

St. Matthew

September 21 · Apostle, Martyr
G

St. Gerulf

September 21 · Martyr
← All 1727 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Sources

Credits

Image: Alexander of Jerusalem.jpg · AnonymousUnknown author · Public domain, 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: AnonymousUnknown author, Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

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.