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Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

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May 4 · Bishop, Martyr

St. Sylvanus of Gaza

St. Sylvanus of Gaza

Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

Traditional feast

May 4
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

Not verified yet

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 May 4 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: Greek Menology of the Emperor Basil, Usuardus and Roman Martyrology. Authority: — Eusebius in his account of the Martyrs of Palestine; a perfectly trustworthy account by a contemporary.] Sylvanus, the venerable bishop of Gaza, was one of the multitude of confessors in Palestine sent to labour in the copper mines. But being too old to work, he with others similarly incapacitated by age, or blindness, or other bodily infirmities, to the number of thirty-nine, was beheaded in one day.

Feast days

Feast: May 4

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

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

Also on May 4
St. Judas or Quiriacus

St. Judas or Quiriacus

May 4 · Bishop
St. Pelagia

St. Pelagia

May 4 · Virgin, Martyr
M

St. Monica

May 4 · Widow
← All 1726 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day 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.