Synaxis Saints Who Shone Forth in the Lands of Spain and Portugal

The Synaxis of the Saints Who Shone Forth in the Lands of Spain and Portugal honours saints of the ancient, undivided Church who lived on the Iberian Peninsula.

In April 2018 the Assembly of Orthodox Bishops of Spain and Portugal approved the local veneration of more than 200 Iberian saints, and on 7 October 2018 their glorification was solemnly celebrated in Zaragoza. On 28 December 2018 the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, at the request of Bishop Nestor of Korsun, established the feast in the Russian Church. It is kept on the Sunday before 12 October (New Style), Spain's national day and the feast of Our Lady of the Pillar.

By the Synod's decision the Synaxis includes eighty saints: the Martyr Vincent of Zaragoza, the Martyr Victoria of Cordoba, the Martyr Hermenegild (a Visigothic prince executed by his Arian father in 586), Hosius, Bishop of Cordoba, a participant in the First Ecumenical Council, the Martyr Eulalia of Barcelona, the Martyr Leocadia of Toledo, the Venerable Emilian of Cogolla, Saint Martin of Braga, and the 72 Martyrs of Cordoba, Christians executed there in the 9th and 10th centuries under Muslim rule.