Hieromartyr
Hieromartyr Hieromartyr Proculus (Procolo) of Puteoli
† ок. 305
Also known as: диакон, с сщмч. Ианнуарием Беневентским и группой мучеников
Hieromartyr Proculus of Puteoli — a deacon who suffered together with Hieromartyr Januarius of Benevento and a group of martyrs under Emperor Diocletian: after surviving a fiery furnace and the beasts of the amphitheater, all were beheaded.
CRITICAL: date corrected — previously missing; the Western (Catholic) tradition commemorates them on September 19 (Januarius's feast), but this does not match the Orthodox calendar; the correct Orthodox date is April 21/May 4.
Proculus was a deacon of the church of Puteoli (Pozzuoli), near Naples. During the persecution of Emperor Diocletian (c. 305), the governor of Campania, Timothy, arrested Bishop Januarius of Benevento; after confessing his faith, the bishop was thrown into a blazing furnace but, like the Three Youths in Babylon, emerged unharmed. Deacon Faustus and reader Desiderius, recognized among the crowd of witnesses to this miracle as Christians, were seized and imprisoned with Januarius in the Puteoli jail, where deacons Sossius and Proculus, along with laymen Eutychius and Acutius, were already held.
The next morning all seven were brought into the Puteoli amphitheater and thrown to wild beasts — bears and lions — but the animals would not touch them. Unmoved even by this miracle, the judge ordered all seven beheaded by the sword. Proculus thus died a martyr's death among the companions of Hieromartyr Januarius, later the patron saint of Naples.