Vincent of Saragossa
saint and martyr
Vincent of Saragossa (also known as Vincent Martyr, Vincent of Huesca or Vincent the Deacon) was a deacon of the Church of Zaragoza (older: Saragossa). He is considered as a Protomartyr of Spain and the patron saint of Lisbon, Algarve, and Valencia. His feast day is 22 January in the Catholic Church, Anglican Communion, and the Eastern Orthodox Church, with an additional commemoration on 11 November in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Vincent was born at Huesca and martyred under the Emperor Diocletian around the year 304.
Biography
The earliest account of Vincent's martyrdom is in a carmen (lyric poem) written by the poet Prudentius, who wrote a series of lyric poems, Peristephanon ("Crowns of Martyrdom"), on Hispanic and Roman martyrs.
He was born at Huesca, near Zaragoza, in Spain sometime during the latter part of the 3rd century. It is believed his father was Eutricius (Euthicius), and his mother was Enola, a native of Osca (Huesca).
Vincent spent most of his life in the city of Zaragoza, where he was educated and ordained to the diaconate by Bishop Valerius of Saragossa, who commissioned Vincent to preach throughout the diocese. Because Valerius suffered from a speech impediment, Vincent acted as his spokesman.
When the Roman Emperor Diocletian began persecuting Christians in Spain, both were brought before the Roman governor, Dacian, in Valencia.
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This entry incorporates text from “Vincent of Saragossa” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.