Feast day: December 22
St. Chaeremon & the Martyrs of Egypt
An aged Egyptian bishop and a multitude of Christians who, during the persecution of Decius, fled into the desert mountains, where many died of hunger, thirst, and exposure rather than deny the faith.
Chaeremon was a very aged bishop of Nilopolis, in Egypt, whose story is preserved in a vivid letter of St. Dionysius of Alexandria, written in the middle of the third century during the fierce persecution of the emperor Decius. He stands here for the many Egyptian Christians who suffered in that persecution, whose memory the Church keeps in these December days.
When the Decian persecution broke out about 250, demanding that all citizens offer sacrifice to the pagan gods, Christians faced an agonizing choice. Many stood firm and were martyred; some fled; some, in fear, gave way. Dionysius's letter movingly describes both the heroism and the human frailty of his people under the terror.
Chaeremon, already extremely old, fled with his wife into the Arabian mountains beyond the Nile to escape the persecutors, and was never seen again — vanished into the desert, where, the bishop writes, despite a search not even their bodies were ever found. He is honoured among the confessors and martyrs of the persecution, having faced death rather than deny the faith.
With him the Church remembers the great company of Egyptian Christians — named and nameless — who in that age gave their lives or their freedom rather than offer pagan sacrifice: a reminder that the faith of Egypt, like that of Rome, was watered by the blood of countless ordinary believers.
The old bishop and his companions vanished into the desert and were never seen again — counted among the martyrs who died simply for refusing to renounce Christ.
Source: newadvent.org/cathen/05011a.htm
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