Martyr Longinus the Centurion, who stood at the Cross of the Lord and with him 2 other Martyrs

The Gospels tell of a centurion who stood at the Cross and, seeing how Jesus died, said: “Truly this man was the Son of God” (Mark 15:39). Later tradition, beginning with the apocryphal Acts of Pilate, gives him the name Longinus; in the West he is also identified with the soldier who pierced Christ's side with a spear.

His Life makes him a native of Cappadocia and tells that he guarded the tomb, refused to spread the story that the body had been stolen, and went home to preach. There, it says, soldiers sent from Jerusalem beheaded him together with two companions, and his head was taken to Jerusalem and thrown on a refuse heap.