Domnius of Salona

The Holy Hieromartyr Domnius (Duje, Dujam) was bishop of Salona (today Solin, in Croatia) around 300 and is venerated as the patron of the city of Split. His feast is on 7 May, and in some calendars also on 11 April.

According to Christian tradition he was one of the Seventy disciples of the Lord: he is said to have come to Rome with the Apostle Peter and been sent by him to preach in Dalmatia, where he was killed together with eight soldiers whom he had converted. Historians think rather that he was a martyr of the fourth century. He was born at Antioch, into a wealthy and prominent family, and studied at the renowned school there. He was the first known bishop of Salona, capital of the province of Dalmatia, from 284, and was beheaded on 10 April 304, in the amphitheatre at Salona, in the persecution of Diocletian, with seven other Christians, among whom Philocalus, Achaicus and Palotinus are venerated as saints. Soldiers buried him outside the city walls, in the Manastirine cemetery.

When Salona was sacked by the Avars and Slavs, in the sixth century, the inhabitants gradually moved into the nearby palace of Diocletian, making Split the successor of Salona. Domnius became patron of the city, and the cathedral of Saint Domnius was built in the very mausoleum of the emperor who had killed him. His relics were moved there as early as the seventh century; the basilica of Saint John Lateran in Rome says it holds part of them too, since Pope John IV asked that relics of a martyr named Domnio be brought to Rome. His day, called in Split Sudamja, is celebrated on 7 May, with a procession in which the silver reliquary with the saint's relics is carried, and his image is on the city's coat of arms.