Carpus and Papylus

The Holy Martyrs Carpus and Papylus suffered at Pergamum in Asia Minor. Carpus was a bishop (of Gordos in Lydia or of Thyatira, according to the sources), and Papylus a deacon from Thyatira. With Papylus's sister Agathonice they are the heroes of a martyrdom known from the "Acts of Carpus, Papylus and Agathonice". The date is uncertain: either in the time of Marcus Aurelius (second century) or under Decius (third century).

While they were at Pergamum the governor invited them to eat meat offered to idols and urged them to sacrifice to the gods in the name of the emperor. Carpus was the first to refuse, as a Christian. In one account their servant Agathodorus was scourged to death with bull's sinews to urge them to renounce, but Carpus did not yield. Carpus was hung up and his body torn with iron claws; Papylus, a wealthy Roman citizen, suffered the same, and they were condemned to the fire, nailed to a stake. Agathonice, Papylus's sister, watched their death and threw herself willingly into the pyre; the crowd tried to hold her back for the sake of her son, but she answered that God would have pity on him. In Eusebius's Greek version she appears as a bystander, in the longer Latin one as a witness in Carpus's trial.

They are commemorated on 13 October (and on 4 April) in the Orthodox Church and on 13 October in the Armenian, Coptic and Syriac Churches; the Catholic Church commemorates them on 13 April.