Saint Denis, Bishop, and Companions, Martyrs

Denis (Dionysius) was the first bishop of Paris. Gregory of Tours, writing in the 6th century, says he was one of seven bishops sent from Rome to Gaul about the middle of the 3rd century, and that he was beheaded with the priest Rusticus and the deacon Eleutherius. The hill where they died came to be called Montmartre, the mount of martyrs, and over their tomb to the north of Paris grew the abbey of Saint-Denis, where the kings of France were buried. Later legend tells that after his beheading Denis walked carrying his head; in the 9th century Abbot Hilduin identified him with Dionysius the Areopagite of the Acts of the Apostles, an identification historians reject.