✦ Remembering Saints

Feast day: March 12

St. Maximilian of Tebessa

Martyr · c. 274–295

Patron of Conscientious objectors

A young North African who, brought before the proconsul to be enrolled as a soldier, refused on the grounds that his conscience as a Christian would not let him bear arms, and was executed.

Often called the first recorded conscientious objector, he told the court plainly, 'I cannot serve as a soldier; I am a Christian,' and died for it at twenty-one.

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