Usthazades
Feast: 17 April (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)
Who they were
Likewise are commemorated the very many martyrs who, after the death of Saint Simeon, died throughout Persia for the name of Christ, pierced by the sword on the order of the same King Shapur II; among them Saint Usthazades, a court eunuch and tutor of Shapur himself, who suffered martyrdom in the palace of Artaxerxes, Shapur's brother, at the first signs of the persecutions in the province of Adiabene, in the territory of present-day Iraq.
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 17 April as a court eunuch and tutor of Shapur II, among the many martyrs of Persia after Saint Simeon.
- Roman Martyrology, 17 April (Italian Bishops' Conference, Santo del giorno)
- Wikidata Q9367436 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
Checked against the sources listed on 22 September 2026. Corrections welcome.