Justus

Saint Justus of Corinth is venerated as a saint by the Catholic Church. According to tradition he was a disciple of the holy Apostle Paul and, together with Saint Orontius (the principal patron) and Saint Fortunatus, is a patron of the city of Lecce. Very little is known of his historical deeds; his memory is closely bound to that of Orontius in the Salento.

He is said to have been probably of Jewish origin and to have lived at Corinth. Paul is said to have charged him with carrying the Epistle to the Romans, and on the way to Rome he was shipwrecked on the shore of the Salento, near present-⁠day San Cataldo. There he met the patrician Orontius of Lecce, brought him to the faith and baptized him; after his return from Rome the two preached throughout Iapygia. Orontius, accompanied by Justus, went to Corinth, where he was consecrated bishop by Paul himself, and left his nephew Fortunatus as his successor. They suffered martyrdom in the persecution of Nero; Justus died at Lecce on 26 August 68.

His veneration is very old: the Porta Napoli of Lecce, built in the sixteenth century, stands on the ruins of an older "Porta San Giusto". Only in the middle of the seventeenth century, after the miracle of Saint Orontius, who is said to have saved Lecce from the plague in 1658, did Bishop Luigi Pappacoda proclaim him patron of the city and the diocese. He is commemorated on 26 August, by the Western calendar; at Lecce the festival lasts from 24 to 26 August, and on the 24th an old wooden bust of the saint is carried in procession.