Potitus

Saint Potitus the Martyr was a young Christian of Serdica (today Sofia, in Bulgaria) who received the crown of martyrdom around the year 160, in the reign of the emperor Antoninus Pius. The Church remembers him for a faith that did not waver, confessed in early youth, and for the healings that tradition ties to his name.

According to tradition Potitus was born about the year 145 into a rich pagan family of pagan priests. While still a child he came to know the Christian faith among the large Christian community of Serdica and embraced it. His father tried in vain to bring him back to the faith of his ancestors; the Bulgarian sources say that he was himself won over by his son's words and became a Christian.

The Life of Potitus, preserved in a ninth-⁠century account, attributes many healings to him. The best known is the cure of Agnes, the emperor's daughter, who was afflicted with madness and who is said to have been baptized as well. For this last kindness, the tradition says, the young man paid for his faith with his life.

Potitus would not renounce Christ. He was thrown to the lions, but they would not touch him; he was then plunged into boiling oil and came out unharmed. At last he was put to the sword. The sources differ on his age at death (thirteen, fifteen, or somewhat more), but all show him as a teenager. One Bulgarian source adds that milk flowed from his wound instead of blood.

The Italian tradition holds that his relics were carried miraculously to the Apennines, to Tricarico, while the Bulgarian tradition says he suffered in his native city. His relics were found on 14 January 1506 in a church of the Knights of Malta and rest in the cathedral of Tricarico, of which he is patron, as he is of the town of Ascoli Satriano. There a fragment of his forearm bone, kept in a bust-⁠shaped reliquary, is carried in procession each year between 18 and 20 August. A local legend tells of a muleteer who called on him for help and found his incorrupt body in the mud.

In 2020 a particle of his relics, together with one of Saint Clement of Serdica, was brought to Bulgaria as a gift of Pope Francis. Saint Potitus counts among the ten saints of Sofia, and his feast is kept on 14 January.