Romanus of Nicomedia

Holy Martyr Romanus of Nicomedia is commemorated together with the Holy Martyrs Eusebius, Charalambos, Meletius (Teletius) and Christina, burned, according to Byzantine tradition, at Nicomedia.

Their commemoration is entered in most Byzantine calendars under 30 May: in the Synaxarion of the Church of Constantinople of the end of the tenth century, in the Typikon of the Great Church of the ninth and tenth centuries and in other synaxaria. In the verse synaxaria they are divided into two groups: the memory of Romanus and Meletius, put to the sword, stays on 30 May, while that of Eusebius and Christina, the burned, is moved to 31 May; the name of Christina is omitted. In this form the commemoration entered the printed Greek Menaia and the Synaxaristes of Venerable Nicodemus the Hagiorite. In the Martyrology of Blessed Jerome, on 30 May the courtiers of Nicomedia are commemorated, from which Archbishop Sergius (Spassky) supposed that the sufferers were among the Christians of the court, whose torments and executions took place after the two fires in Diocletian's palace at Nicomedia (303). Delehaye, relying on the Carthage Calendar, thinks, however, that Nicomedia is a distortion of the name of the African region Numidia. The Patmos list of the Typikon specifies that the martyrs were burned in a church. According to the Synaxarion of Constantinople, the synaxis in their honour was held in the church of the Holy Great Martyr Euphemia, near the church of St Lawrence in Petria; according to the Patmos list, the church of Euphemia stood in the Dexiokrateia quarter.

St Romanus is commemorated on 30 May in the old style, that is 13 June in the new style; his name has not been entered in the present calendar of the Russian Orthodox Church.