Genesius

Saint Genesius of Thiers was a disciple of Syrenatus, the companion of Saint Austremonius of Clermont, and a confessor of the faith in Auvergne; he died a martyr in the third century or the early fourth.

According to the Roman Martyrology, he came as a youth from Mycenae in Greece, at his mother's request, to Saint Syrenatus, his spiritual father; other sources have him born in Auvergne. He is said to have been tortured and beheaded on a rock overlooking the Creux de l'Enfer at Thiers, because he would not reveal where his master was hiding, according to Gregory of Tours. The same Gregory writes that only through a miracle was the place of his tomb found, in the sixth century. It is told that he died wearing the white robe of his baptism. The Romanesque church of Saint-⁠Genès was built on that rock.

His commemoration is kept on 28 October in the Western calendar. He is a saint of the undivided Church, honoured without synodal canonization.