Martyr Martyr Protasius of Milan

Sts. Gervasius and Protasius were twin brothers born in Milan to the Christian martyrs Vitalis and Valeria. After their parents were put to death for the faith, the brothers distributed their inheritance among the poor, freed their household slaves, and devoted themselves entirely to prayer and fasting, refusing to renounce Christ despite the dangers of persecution (by tradition, under Nero, in the 60s AD). They were imprisoned in Milan for their steadfast confession.

During their captivity they were visited and comforted by two other Christians, Nazarius — a preacher of mixed Jewish-Christian parentage who had traveled and evangelized widely through Italy and Gaul — and the boy Celsus, whom Nazarius had converted and taken as a companion. When this visit was reported to the authorities, Nazarius and Celsus were beheaded, and shortly afterward Gervasius and Protasius were scourged and likewise put to death, becoming a company of four Milanese martyrs venerated together ever since.

Their burial place was lost to memory for over three centuries until, on June 17, 386, St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, received a divine revelation disclosing the location of Gervasius and Protasius's tomb. Their bodies were found intact and "abundantly stained with blood." The solemn translation of their relics to Milan's basilica was accompanied by widely attested miracles — including the restoration of sight to a blind man, an event Blessed Augustine himself witnessed and recorded in his "Confessions" — and became a decisive moment strengthening Nicene orthodoxy against Arian influence at the imperial court in Milan.