Emeterius

Saint Emeterius of Calahorra, Martyr, was a Roman soldier, beheaded for professing Christianity, on 3 March, between the years 298 and 304. Together with Saint Celedonius he is patron of the city of Santander and its diocese (Cantabria), and of the city of Calahorra in northern Spain, where he died. From his name comes the name Santander (Sant'Emter).

Emeterius and Celedonius, probably brothers, belonged to the Legio Gemina Pia Felix, stationed near ancient Lancia, near León, and served at Calahorra at the end of the third century. Perhaps in the time of Galerius or of the persecution of Diocletian they were imprisoned and faced with the choice: either to renounce their faith or to give up the military profession, though they had been honored with the torque, a Roman decoration, for bravery and discipline. They were imprisoned in a place called the Holy House, tortured and then beheaded on the bank of the river Cidacos, near Calahorra, where the present cathedral was later built. Tradition says that their heads reached Santander in a stone boat and were received by a monastic community there; it is also possible that they were taken there to protect them from the Muslim invasion. Today the heads are kept in the cathedral of Santander, and the remains in the cathedral of Calahorra, where they are carried in procession on 3 March, 15 May and 31 August.

The Roman Martyrology of 2001 says: at Calahorra in Hispania Tarraconensis, commemoration of Saints Emeterius and Celedonius; both were serving in the military in a camp near León, and when the persecution broke out, for having confessed the name of Christ, they were taken to Calahorra and there crowned with martyrdom. The Latin poet Prudentius, a native of Calahorra, dedicated a hymn to them.