The holy Hieromartyrs Fructuosus, Bishop of Tarragona, and his Deacons Augurius and Eulogius.
Tarragona was in the first centuries of our era the capital of Spain, being a seaport on its eastern coast south of Barcelona. If Saint Paul “took his journey to Spain,” as he says in his Epistle to the Romans, he probably put in at this important city. Saint Fructuosus was her Bishop in the middle of the third century. On January 16, 259, in the persecution of Valerian and Gallienus (in which Saint Cyprian of Carthage also received his crown), Fructuosus with his deacons Augurius and Eulogius was taken by soldiers and put in prison. The next day, while in prison, he baptized a catechumen named Rogatianus. After six days of imprisonment they were brought before Emilian the governor and questioned. After declaring that he was ignorant of the orders of the Roman Emperors and their gods, he said, “I worship one God, Who made heaven and earth and all that in them is.”
Emilian said, “Do you not know that there are many gods?”
“No,” said Fructuosus, “I do not.”
“Then you will soon,” said Emilian.
After Augurius also had professed his faith in the One God, Emilian turned to Fructuosus’s other deacon Eulogius, and said, “Do you worship Fructuosus also?” To which he answered, “I do not worship Fructuosus, but the God Whom he worships.”
Then Emilian turned to Fructuosus again and said, “Are you a bishop?”
“I am.”
“You were,” said Emilian, and ordered that they be burned alive.
As Fructuosus and his two deacons were being led to the amphitheater, even the pagans mourned for him, since he was universally loved by all. When someone offered him a cup of spiced wine, he refused it, since it was a Wednesday, and the time had not yet come to break the fast. A pious man named Felix asked the Bishop to remember him, to which Saint Fructuosus answered in a clear voice for all to hear, “I must bear in mind the whole Catholic Church spread out through the east and west.” Promising the grieving faithful that the Lord would not long leave the flock without a shepherd, and declaring that this was nothing more than the suffering of a single hour, he was burned alive with his two deacons. Afterwards, when some of the faithful each took some of their ashes as holy relics, Saint Fructuosus appeared to them and instructed them to restore the ashes without delay so that they would remain together in one place. The acts of Saint Fructuosus and his two deacons were known to Augustine of Hippo and the Spanish poet Prudentius in the fourth century and are considered genuine by even the most skeptical modern hagiographers.
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