Sisenandus of Beja

Sisenandus of Beja was a deacon and martyr, put to death at Córdoba, in Muslim-⁠ruled Spain, on 16 July 851, in the time of the emir Abd ar-⁠Rahman II. He is counted among the martyrs of Córdoba.

Almost all that is known of him comes from the Memorial of the Saints of Eulogius of Córdoba, written in that time. Eulogius says he was from Beja, in present-⁠day Portugal, and that he went as a young man to Córdoba as a clerical student, to the basilica of Saint Acisclus. There he received ordination as a deacon and was a fervent preacher. He was soon arrested, tried and martyred by order of the emir. His remains were thrown into the Guadalquivir, then recovered and taken to the church of San Pedro in Córdoba.

The Memorial of Eulogius survived in a single manuscript, forgotten for centuries at Oviedo, and was printed only in 1574, after which interest in the martyrs of Córdoba revived. At the end of the 16th century the town of Beja asked for his relics, and in 1600 a bone of the forearm was brought there, with the approval of the bishop of Córdoba and King Philip II.

He is a saint of the undivided Church, honored mostly in the West; no Orthodox synodal canonization is known.