Eutychius of Pozzuoli

Holy Martyr Eutychius of Pozzuoli is commemorated in the company of the Holy Hieromartyr Januarius, bishop, and the Holy Martyrs Proculus, Sossius, Faustus the deacons, Desiderius the reader, Eutychius and Acutio, who died as martyrs for Christ around 305, in the persecution of Diocletian (284 to 305).

The hierarch Januarius was seized and brought to trial before the governor of Campania, Timothy. For his firm confession of the Christian faith he was thrown into a heated furnace, but came out unharmed, like the youths in Babylon. Then Timothy ordered him stretched on a rack and beaten with iron rods until his bones were exposed. In the crowd were the deacon Faustus and the reader Desiderius, who wept at their bishop's suffering. The pagans guessed that they were Christians and threw them into the prison of Pozzuoli, together with Januarius. In the prison were already held, for confessing Christ, two deacons, Sossius and Proculus, and two laymen, Eutychius and Acutio.

The next morning all the martyrs were brought out into the circus to be torn by beasts, but the beasts did not touch them. Timothy declared that all the miracles came from the sorcery of the Christians, but he went blind on the spot and began to cry out for help. The gentle Januarius prayed for his healing, and Timothy saw again. The blindness of his soul did not leave him, however, and, accusing them still more fiercely of sorcery, he ordered the heads of all the martyrs cut off outside the city walls, around 305.

The Christians of the surrounding cities took the bodies for burial, each city taking one, so as to have an intercessor before God. The people of Naples took the body of Januarius, gathering also his clotted blood. When the vessel with the blood was placed beside the relics in the church of Naples, the blood dissolved and became hot, as if it had just been shed. Many miracles came from his relics; at the eruption of Vesuvius, at the prayer of the inhabitants to Saint Januarius, the lava stopped before it reached the city. Eutychius is commemorated on 4 May (new style).