Rusticus

Saint Rusticus, hieromartyr, was a priest, companion of Saint Denis in his preaching in the West, together with the deacon Eleutherius. He is venerated as a martyr. The Orthodox Church commemorates him on 3 October by the old calendar, which is 16 October by the new, and the Catholic Church on 9 October.

According to tradition, Saint Denis the hierarch set out to preach in the lands of the West, accompanied by the priest Rusticus and the deacon Eleutherius. He brought many to Christ at Rome, then in Germany and Spain. In Gaul, in the time of a persecution of Christians by the pagan authorities, all three confessors were seized and thrown into prison. For spreading Christianity and for refusing to renounce Christ, all of them were cruelly tortured, by order of the governor of Gaul, Sisinnius, and then beheaded, put to the sword.

The encyclopedic dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron says that this took place, according to some reports, in the time of Valerian, between 253 and 260, and according to others in the time of Maximian Herculius, between 286 and 292. The Russian Church accepts the dating to the second half of the third century.

In 2008 the embassy of France in Russia presented to the Saint Daniel monastery in Moscow an icon of the holy martyr Rusticus of Paris, on the twenty-⁠fifth anniversary of the renewal of the monastery.