ST CLEMENT OF ANCYRA, BISHOP AND MARTYR - 23 JANUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY

Saints celebrated on the 23rd of January

Prayer to the Angels and the Saints

Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.

In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.

Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.

Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

SAINT CLEMENT OF ANCYRA, BISHOP AND MARTYR  

Saint Clement of Ancyra suffered under Diocletian, and is ranked by the Greeks among the great martyrs. 

ONE OF THE GREAT MARTYRS

His modern Greek acts say, his lingering martyrdom was continued by divers torments during twenty-eight years; but are demonstrated by Baronius and others to be of no authority. 

CHURCHES UNDER HIS INVOCATION

Two churches at Constantinople were dedicated to God under the invocation of St Clement of Ancyra; one called of the Palace, the other now in Pera, a suburb of that city. 

HIS RELICS

Several parts of his relics were kept with great devotion at Constantinople. His skull, which was brought thence to Paris when Constantinople was taken by the Latins, in the thirteenth century, was given by Queen Anne of Austria to the abbey of Val de Grace. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)