Donatian

Who they were

At Nantes in Lugdunensian Gaul, in France, the holy brothers Donatian and Rogatian, martyrs, of whom, according to tradition, the first had received baptism while the other was still a catechumen; at the final trial, Donatian, kissing his brother, prayed God to grant that the one who had not been immersed in the sacred font of baptism might be sprinkled with his own shed blood.

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

The Roman Martyrology remembers him on 24 May as a martyr of Nantes who prayed that his unbaptised brother Rogatian be baptised in his blood.

Connected on this site

• Rogatian Saint Brother or sister