Comitius

Who they were

Saint Comizio the Martyr, venerated on 2 June, is a figure wrapped in obscurity. The only information about him comes from an 11th-12th century manuscript, the "Passio Sancti Comitii," which hagiographers consider unreliable and full of fantastic elements. According to it, Comizio was a humble farmer of Catania who converted to Christianity under the Emperor Claudius; his unwavering faith provoked the emperor's anger, who tried in vain to make him recant by offering him the hand of his daughter, the princess Claudia, then had him executed when he refused.

Despite the evident unreliability of the Passio, devotion to Comizio spread in some parts of Italy, though at Catania he is almost unknown and ignored by scholars; he is also venerated at Penne, in Abruzzo, where some identify him with the martyr of Catania and others with one of the martyrs of Lyon. Given inconsistencies in the story, such as the fact that persecution of Christians only began under Diocletian well after the reign of Claudius, and no princess Claudia is historically attested, scholars have suggested he may have been confused with another martyr of the same name, that his name resulted from a copying error, or even that the figure was invented outright, as often happened in medieval hagiography.

The miracles

There was never a formal cause: he has been honoured as a saint since before the Church's formal processes began.

Why that counted as sanctity

Martyr known only from an unreliable medieval 'Passio' describing his execution for refusing to abandon the faith; his historical existence is doubted by scholars.