Saint Sixtus II, Pope, and Companions, Martyrs

Sixtus II became bishop of Rome in 257, when Emperor Valerian had begun a persecution aimed at the clergy. A second edict in 258 ordered bishops, priests and deacons to be put to death. On 6 August 258, as Cyprian of Carthage reported in a letter written soon after, Sixtus was seized in the cemetery of Callistus on the Appian Way, where he was sitting among the faithful, and beheaded there together with four of his deacons. Two more deacons, Felicissimus and Agapitus, were killed the same day, and the deacon Lawrence four days later. Pope Damasus later set up a verse inscription at his tomb, and his name is in the Roman Canon of the Mass.