Gaius of Alexandria

Holy Hieromartyr Gaius of Alexandria was a deacon and is remembered together with Faustus, Eusebius, Chaeremon, Lucius, Peter and Paul, who suffered in the persecution of the emperor Valerian (253-260).

They are mentioned in the preserved fragments of the letter of Saint Dionysius the Great, patriarch of Alexandria (247-265), to Bishop Germanus, and in the letter to Domitius and Didymus, quoted in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius of Caesarea. In the persecution of Decius, Gaius, Faustus, Peter and Paul carried Dionysius out of the city of Taposiris. In the persecution of Valerian, Dionysius, with the priest Maximus and the deacons Faustus, Eusebius and Chaeremon, stood before the prefect of Egypt, Aemilian, who ordered them to renounce Christ. They refused and were exiled to the village of Kephro, where a Christian community gathered round them. After a time Aemilian sent them to the region of Mareotis, but, as Dionysius writes, he, Gaius, Faustus, Eusebius, Peter and Paul were snatched from the convoy, and he, Gaius and Peter found themselves in the Libyan desert near Paraetonium. According to Eusebius, Faustus survived the persecution of Valerian but later was beheaded.

Perhaps these reports lay at the base of a hagiographic tradition which gathered these martyrs in a single company; the names and days of commemoration vary. The Greek synaxaria mention Saint Dionysius and eight companions. In the Synaxarion of Constantinople of the tenth century, under 3 October, are named Dionysius, Faustus, Gaius, Peter, Paul, Eusebius and Chaeremon, and in a Vatican manuscript the commemoration of Dionysius, Gaius, Faustus, Chaeremon and Eusebius is on 4 October. The day of commemoration goes back most likely to the day of Saint Dionysius, 3 October. From the Greek synaxaria the reports passed into the Roman Martyrology, which under 3 October mentions Dionysius, Faustus, Gaius, Peter, Paul and four more martyrs whose names cannot be established. The Azbyka page gives for Gaius the day of 17 October.