Marcel d'Apamée

Who they were

Marcellus was bishop of Apamaea in Syria when the emperor Theodosius ordered the pagan temples to be destroyed. When the soldiers could not bring down the great temple of Zeus, a workman offered to do it for the bishop by undermining its columns and burning away the props, and Marcellus went on to have other temples pulled down the same way.

At one temple the worshippers resisted; they seized Marcellus, who was watching from a distance because of his gout, and threw him into the fire, about 389. The provincial council told his sons not to take revenge. Butler notes that, because of his aggressive conduct, his title to the honours of a martyr is doubtful.

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

A fourth-century bishop in Syria killed while destroying pagan temples.