Saints
“Anicetus and Photius of Nicomedia”
Martyrs of Nicomedia under Diocletian
An uncle and his nephew. Anicetus was a magistrate of Nicomedia who, when Diocletian set up the instruments of torture in the public square and offered rewards for informers, walked out in front of the assembly and said he was a Christian. Photius, his nephew, came out of the crowd and embraced him, and the two were killed together after three years in prison.
His life
Nicomedia was Diocletian's eastern capital and the place where the great persecution was published in 303. The tradition sets this account there: the emperor had the engines of torture displayed in the open and promised rewards to anyone who would give up Christians.
Anicetus was a member of the city's governing class. He came forward himself, told the emperor that the display was a confession of weakness, and said that he was a Christian. He was tortured, and the accounts of what he survived are of the kind the martyrologies tell.
His nephew Photius came out of the crowd, embraced him publicly, and refused the offer of his life. The two were held for three years and then killed together, thrown into a heated furnace in the year 305 or thereabouts.
The Church keeps them on the twelfth of August. Their relics were later translated to Constantinople.
Holy Sts. Photius and Anicetus, pray to God for us.