M

After the revolt of Barchokebas, the emperor Adrian rebuilt Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina and forbade Jews to come near it.

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October 22 · Bishop

St. Mark of Jerusalem

St. Mark of Jerusalem

After the revolt of Barchokebas, the emperor Adrian rebuilt Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina and forbade Jews to come near it.

Traditional feast

October 22
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

Not verified yet

Represents

Bishop

Their story

Adapted in modern English from Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints · little is known

After the revolt of Barchokebas, the emperor Adrian rebuilt Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina and forbade Jews to come near it. Only Gentile Christians could live there.

Mark was the first bishop of Jerusalem chosen from the Gentiles. Butler calls him a learned and holy man who, after twenty years as bishop, is said to have died a martyr. Butler gives 156; Baring-Gould, the text on this page, gives about 150. The sources differ.

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

Keep their day. Remember them on October 22 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. Martyrologium parvum on Oct. 21st, Usuardus, Ado, Notker, &c., on Oct. 22. Authority: — Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. On the destruction of Jerusalem, the old Church of the Circumcision constituted itself at Pella; the Jewish Christians were not permitted to enter the new city, built on the ruins of the old one, under a new name, iElia Capitolina, with a swine in mockery set up over its gates. But the Romans had no objection to allowing Gentile Christians of the Church of the Uncircumcision to reside within its walls, and they organized a community having over it Mark, a Gentile, as bishop. All the former bishops of Jerusalem had been Jews.

Feast days

Feast: October 22

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

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

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← All 1726 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Story sources

Sources

Credits

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.

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.