Proculus of Puteoli

Holy Martyr Proculus of Puteoli was a deacon and died a martyr around the year 305, in the persecution of Diocletian, with the Holy Hieromartyr Januarius, a bishop, with the deacons Sossius and Faustus, the reader Desiderius, and Eutychius and Acutio.

Januarius was seized and brought to trial before the governor of Campania, Timothy. For his firm confession of faith he was thrown into a red-⁠hot furnace, from which he came out untouched, like the youths of Babylon. Then, by order of Timothy, he was stretched on a rack and beaten with iron rods until his bones showed. In the crowd gathered were the deacon Faustus and the reader Desiderius, who wept at the suffering of their bishop; the pagans understood that they were Christians and threw them into the prison of Puteoli, beside Januarius. There were already two deacons there, Sossius and Proculus, and two laymen, Eutychius and Acutio, imprisoned for the confession of Christ.

The next morning all the martyrs were taken to the circus to be torn by beasts, but the beasts did not touch them. Timothy said that all the wonders were sorcery, but he went blind on the spot and cried for help; gentle Januarius prayed for his healing, and Timothy regained his sight. The blindness of the soul, however, remained, and he ordered, with still greater anger, that all their heads be cut off outside the walls of the city.

The Christians of the neighbouring cities took the bodies of the martyrs, each city one, so as to have an intercessor before God. The Neapolitans took the body of Januarius and gathered from the ground his congealed blood. When the vessel with the blood was placed over the relics of the saint in the church of Naples, the blood melted and became warm, as if it had just been shed. Many miracles came from his relics: during an eruption of Vesuvius, when the townspeople prayed to Januarius, the lava stopped before the city, and a devout woman laid an icon with the saint's image on her dead son, who rose.

St Proculus is commemorated on 4 May, in the new style.