Peter of Alexandria

Holy Hieromartyr Peter of Alexandria, a deacon, is commemorated on 17 October with the martyrs Gaius, Faustus, Eusebius, Chaeremon, Lucius and Paul, 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 Taposiris. In that of Valerian, Dionysius, with the presbyter Maximus and the deacons Faustus, Eusebius and Chaeremon, stood before the prefect of Egypt, Aemilian, who commanded them to renounce Christ. They refused and were exiled to the village of Kephro, where a Christian community gathered 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, Faustus escaped the persecution of Valerian but was later beheaded.

It may be that these reports gave rise to a tradition that united them in one company; the names and days vary. The Greek synaxaria mention Dionysius and eight companions, and the Roman Martyrology, on 3 October, mentions Dionysius, Faustus, Gaius, Peter, Paul and four more martyrs whose names cannot be established. They are not included in the present calendar of the Russian Orthodox Church. Saint Peter is commemorated on 17 October, in the new style.