Florus and Laurus

The Holy Martyrs Florus and Laurus were twin brothers, stonemasons of Illyria, put to death for their faith in Christ in the second century. They are known only from lives. They are remembered on 18 August, by the Orthodox Church on the old calendar and by the Catholic Church. In Russia they were counted patrons of horses.

Life

According to the Greek story, they were twin brothers, natives of Byzantium but settled at Ulpiana, in Dardania, south of present-⁠day Pristina, in the region of Illyricum. They had learned masonry from two Christians, Maximus and Proculus. According to the life, the ruler of Illyricum, Likaion, sent them, as renowned masons, to the governor of a neighbouring region, to build a new pagan temple. The brothers gave the wages they received to the poor and preached Christ to them. Their preaching was supported by miracles, the best known being the healing of the son of a pagan priest, called Mamertin, injured by a chip of stone from the temple. The healed boy became a Christian, and his father, Mamertin, also decided to become a Christian on seeing his son's recovery.

After the temple was built, but before the idols were brought into it, Florus and Laurus gathered there many local Christians. They prayed together and then smashed the idols, and a cross was set up in the temple. The Christians spent the whole night in prayer in the converted temple. For this the local authorities ordered three hundred Christians to be burned, among them Mamertin and his son. Florus and Laurus were sent back to Illyricum and, having confessed before the governor that they were Christians, were thrown into an empty well and covered with earth.

Relics and veneration

Later their relics were found incorrupt and carried to Constantinople, where they were seen at the Pantocrator monastery by the Russian pilgrims Anthony and Stephen of Novgorod, in 1200 and in 1350. Tradition says that right after the finding of the relics a cattle plague ceased. For this reason in Russia the saints were honoured as patrons of horses, and the old Russian icon manuals require Florus and Laurus to be painted with horses. The great novel War and Peace mentions them in the simple prayer of Platon Karataev, and The Twelve Chairs, by Ilf and Petrov, mentions a church of Frol and Lavr. In 2011 Patriarch Kirill by decree blessed that the day of commemoration of the holy martyrs Florus and Laurus be a church feast of veterinarians.