Paul of Alexandria

Holy Hieromartyr Paul of Alexandria, a deacon, is commemorated on 17 October with the martyrs Gaius, Faustus, Eusebius, Chaeremon, Lucius and Peter, who suffered in the persecution of the emperor Valerian. They are spoken of in surviving fragments of the epistle of Saint Dionysius the Great, patriarch of Alexandria (247-265), to Bishop Germanus, and in the epistle to Domitius and Didymus, quoted in the Church 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, together with the presbyter 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 formed around them. Later Aemilian sent them toward the region of Mareotis, but, as Dionysius writes, he, Gaius, Faustus, Eusebius, Peter and Paul were taken from their guard, and he, Gaius and Peter ended in the Libyan desert near Paraetonium. According to Eusebius of Caesarea, Faustus survived the persecution of Valerian but was later beheaded.

It may be that these reports gave rise to a hagiographic tradition that united them in one company (the names and commemoration days vary). The Greek synaxaria mention Dionysius and eight companions. In the Synaxarion of Constantinople of the tenth century, on 3 October, are listed Dionysius, Faustus, Gaius, Peter, Paul, Eusebius and Chaeremon; in one manuscript the commemoration of Dionysius, Gaius, Faustus, Chaeremon and Eusebius is on 4 October. The day of their commemoration probably goes back to the day of Saint Dionysius (3 October). From the Greek synaxaria the reports passed into the Roman Martyrology, where on 3 October Dionysius, Faustus, Gaius, Peter, Paul and four more martyrs whose names cannot be established are mentioned.

Saint Paul is commemorated on 17 October, in the new style. He is not included in the present calendar of the Russian Orthodox Church.