Anastasius

The holy Martyrs Anastasius, Felix and Digna are three of the Martyrs of Córdoba, the Christians of Moorish Spain who gave their lives for Christ between 850 and 859. They were beheaded on 14 June 853, in the reign of the emir Muhammad I, and are commemorated together on 14 June.

Anastasius was a deacon of the church of Saint Acisclus in Córdoba. Later he became a monk at the monastery of Tábanos near the city, a community of monks and nuns which gave several martyrs to the Church in those years.

Felix was born at Alcalá de Henares to Muslim parents of Berber stock who had come from Africa. He came to the Christian faith in Asturias, in the Christian north of the Peninsula, and became a monk there. Afterwards he came to Tábanos, wishing to confess Christ unto death. Digna was a nun of the same monastery.

The three were among the first to confess the faith openly in Córdoba under the new emir. They were condemned and beheaded. Of Felix it is said that his body was exposed and then burned, and the remaining bones were thrown into the river Guadalquivir, from which the monks gathered them. The example of Anastasius moved a woman of Córdoba, Saint Benildis, to go to martyrdom herself the very next day.

What we know of the martyrs of these years we owe to Saint Eulogius of Córdoba, the priest who wrote of their sufferings and who himself received the crown of martyrdom in 859. Part of the relics of Felix were taken in 1075 to the monastery of Saint Zoilus at Carrión de los Condes, and in 1607 further relics of his reached Alcalá de Henares, where they are still venerated in the cathedral.

The holy Martyrs Anastasius, Felix and Digna are honoured on 14 June.