Martyr
Martyr Cosmas of Rome
† ок. 284
Also known as: Косма бессребреник
Martyr Cosmas of Rome — an unmercenary physician who, together with his brother Damian, healed without charge and was killed by an envious teacher-physician who lured the brothers into the mountains; suffered under Emperor Carinus c. 284.
The unmercenary physicians Cosmas and Damian of Rome were brothers by birth, raised by their mother in Christian piety, who practiced medicine without charge, insisting that healing came through Christ's grace rather than their own skill.
Their former teacher, an older physician, grew envious of their renown, lured them into the mountains under pretense of gathering medicinal herbs, and murdered them, casting their bodies into a river. They suffered under Emperor Carinus around 284 AD.
Their feast is kept on July 1/14.
NOTE: the name "Cosmas," paired with Damian, is shared by at least THREE distinct canonical pairs of unmercenary saints (of Rome, of Asia Minor, of Arabia) — this entry has been identified with the Roman pair as the most plausible match for the image's Western-style iconography (a flask and cup of medicine), though exact identification cannot be confirmed without a legible inscription. A separate database entry, martyr_cosmas_2, describes a different pair (Asia Minor) — these are DIFFERENT historical pairs of saints sharing a common name, not duplicates of each other.