Maturus of Lyons

Holy Martyr Maturus of Lyons was one of the Christians of Lyons (Lugdunum), a chief city of the Roman province of Gaul, who suffered for Christ in the year 177, in the time of the emperor Marcus Aurelius. Their deeds are known above all from a letter sent by the churches of Lyons and Vienne to the churches of Asia and Phrygia, which Eusebius of Caesarea preserved and which scholars attribute to Saint Irenaeus, the successor of Pothinus on the throne of Lyons.

Maturus had been baptized only recently, yet he showed fully the courage of a soldier of Christ. When the Christians were brought out before the crowd and then thrown into prison, Maturus was one of those on whom the anger of the people, the governor and the soldiers fell hardest, together with Sanctus the deacon of Vienne, Attalus of Pergamum and the young slave Blandina. Not even torment could wring a denial from him.

In the amphitheatre Maturus and Sanctus went through all the punishments the crowd demanded: scourging, being torn by beasts, and being seated on a chair of iron heated in the fire, so that the air was filled with the smell of burning flesh. Sanctus did not cease to say that he was a Christian. At the end the throats of both were cut. The bodies of the martyrs were left unburied for many days, then burned, and the ashes were thrown into the river Rhône.

Maturus is commemorated on 7 August, in the new style, together with the holy martyrs Pothinus, Blandina, Pontikos and the other martyrs of Lyons.