Pancras of Rome

Pancras was a Roman citizen who converted to Christianity in an empire that punished the faith with death. At fourteen, he was beheaded around the year 304 for refusing to recant. From early centuries, he was venerated alongside Nereus and Achilleus on 12 May, joined by Domitilla in 1595. The 1969 liturgical reform gave him a separate feast day, still on 12 May, where he remains the second of the Ice Saints. In Syriac tradition he is Mor Izozoel, remembered twice yearly. He became patron saint of children - a protector whose own childhood ended at the edge of a blade. A London district, an old church, a Victorian railway station: all carry his name forward.