235 AD – The Holy Ethiopian / African Martyrs Cassius and Florentius of Bonn, Germany

✞ Around 235 AD, two Christian Roman soldiers stationed in Castra Bonnensia, Cassius and Florentius, were martyred for their Orthodox Christian faith.

Tradition has it that a small memorial shrine was built over their graves in the 4th century by St. Helen, mother of Constantine. There is no surviving evidence of this first structure, but archaeological excavations have shown that the basilica stands on the site of a Roman temple and necropolis.

Saints Cassius and Florentius are the patron saints of the city of Bonn. They were two Roman soldiers of the Theban Legion who, in the 3rd century, confessed their faith in Christ in Bonn and refused to worship the emperor as a god. Therefore, they lost their lives during the persecution of Christians under Emperor Maximinian.

According to the Vita, the legion to which Cassius and Florentius belonged came from the eastern part of the Roman Empire, from present-day Egypt, and was led by the military leader Mauricius, who also possessed the Holy Lance. The Holy Lance, also called the Mauritius Lance or Longinus Lance, is the oldest piece of the Imperial Regalia of the Roman-German kings and Western emperors of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. It contains a piece of a nail from the Cross of Christ. Other named officers of the Theban Legion were Saints Exuperius and Candidus.

According to Saint Eucherius, Bishop of Lyon, all of its 6,600 members were Christians. The following events took place at the beginning of the Great Persecution of Christians in 303. After Maximian had set up camp in Octodurum, he called on his soldiers and their officers to make a sacrifice to the Roman gods before the start of battle. Mauritius and his legion refused and moved their camp to Agaunum (today: St. Maurice d'Agaune). After an unsuccessful request to return and make sacrifices, the legion was decimated twice as punishment. According to the Passion of Saint Eucherius, in addition to adherence to the Christian faith, another important reason for the legion's decimation was its refusal to fight against fellow Christians. He also reports that the legionaries offered no resistance and practically sought martyrdom. So Maximian finally ordered the murder of the entire legion. During the looting of the corpses, an innocent Christian named Victor is said to have passed by and was murdered because he revealed his identity. Two legionaries, Saints Victor and Ursus, escaped to Solothurn and were killed there.

However, after the Passio sanctorum Gereonis, parts of the legion had already rushed ahead to put down an uprising in what is now the Rhineland, where they were arrested and executed in Bonn (Saint Cassius and Saint Florentius with 12 companions), Cologne (Saint Gereon with 318 companions), and Xanten (Saint Victor and Saint Mallosus with 330 companions). The relics of Saint Victor have been kept in a shrine since the 12th century and are now embedded in the high altar of Xanten Cathedral. The place of Saint Gereon's martyrdom is in the Cologne church Ad Martyres , popularly known as Sankt Mechtern in what is now the Cologne-Ehrenfeld district. The relics are, however, in the church of Saint Gereon, which was built by Saint Helena on the graves of Saint Gereon and his companions. Along with Trier Cathedral, it is one of the oldest surviving churches on German soil. According to local tradition in the Diocese of Trier, members of the legion were executed in the north of the city. Numerous skulls and bones attributed to the martyrs are still preserved in Trier's Church of St. Paulin. The church was originally built on a Roman burial ground. The feast day of all these saints from the Thaebaean Legion is October 10th.

The place of execution in Bonn is said to have been "in unconsecrated ground" at the foot of the Kreuzberg. Archaeological evidence shows that a cella memoriae (memorial cell) containing the graves of the martyrs was built in Bonn in the early fourth century, i.e., still in Roman times. A small cult room has been proven to have stood above it in the fifth century.

Helena Augusta – the holy Empress Helena, equal to the Apostles – had the relics of the holy martyrs recovered and buried in a church she built above the cella memoriae . This church was a precursor to today's Minster. In the eleventh century, construction of the present-day Minster began on this site. It was here, and not in the Roman camp to the north of the present-day city, that the present-day city center of Bonn developed from the turn of the millennium onwards.

Cassius and Florentius are mentioned in writing in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum . In 691, a document in Bonn first mentions a basilica dedicated to Saints Cassius, Florentius, and their companions. Their association with the Theban Legion is first documented in the 11th-century document Passio sanctorum Gereonis, Victoris, Cassi et Florentii Thebaeorum martyrum .

On May 2, 1166, Gerhard von Are, the provost of the Cassius Foundation in Bonn, had the saints' graves opened in the crypt. The relics found there were displayed in precious shrines on the high altar of the collegiate church in the presence of Rainald von Dassel, Archbishop of Cologne. These shrines were stolen during the turmoil of the Reformation and have since disappeared. The relics were then stored in simple containers on the high altar. Throughout the centuries, May 2 has been celebrated as a major feast day in the Cassius Foundation and throughout the Archdiocese of Cologne. Alongside the official holiday on October 10, it is the second major feast day honoring the two martyred saints.

During the Thirty Years' War, when large parts of Germany were severely devastated, the city of Bonn was entrusted to the special protection and intercession of Saints Cassius and Florentius in 1643. Even at the beginning of the 18th century, veneration of the original tombs of the holy martyrs beneath the crypt remained alive. After the dissolution of the Cassius Foundation in 1802 following the Napoleonic occupation of the Rhineland, the relics apparently fell into oblivion. In 1887, they were discovered by chance on cabinets in one of the choir towers during a restoration of the cathedral at the time. In 1971, a modern shrine containing the relics, designed by Hein Gernot, was placed in the crypt of the cathedral. A modern Greek icon of the two saints is also located there.

The Theban Legion (also known as the Martyrs of Agaunum) figures in Christian hagiography[a] as a Roman legion from Egypt —"six thousand six hundred and sixty-six men"— consisting of Christian soldiers who were martyred together in 286, according to the hagiographies of Maurice, the chief among them.

So there must have been a real bloodbath here, so that the inhabitants of the city of Bonn still are impressed to experience how these foreign orthodox Christians from Africa stood here for the Christian faith. This was impressed by the confession in the city, in the municipalities, but then finally among the citizens.

We have to remember that Cassius and Florentius and Thebean Legionaries came from Africa and remember that many impulses that shape European culture and also European religion were imports from abroad. They came from the countries of all people, from which refugee movements are currently traveling there, which many look at with a large distance.

Cassius and Florentius show that Europe would not be what Europeans are today if they do not also show a certain openness to the stranger, which is largely enriched - at least that's the Thebean legionnaires. Without that, Christianity would not be developed in Bonn, Cologne and in many other cities in the Rhineland and Europe as we perceive it today.

History of Bonn Münster/ Minister Church

The Bonner Münster (Bonn Minster) is a towering Romanesque basilica of harmonious proportions in Bonn, the former capital of West Germany. It stands on a site that has been sacred for 2,000 years, first as a Roman temple and then as a Christian church and shrine to the martyrs Cassius and Florentius.

One of Germany's oldest churches, Bonn Minster was built between the 11th and 13th centuries. It was the collegiate church of Saints Cassius and Florentius, third-century Roman legionaries of the legendary all-Christian Theban Legion.

The city of Bonn had its start as Castra Bonnensia, a fortress built by the Romans in the 1st century AD. It survived the breakup of the Roman Empire as a civilian settlement, and in the 9th century it became the Frankish town of Bonnburg.

The original memorial hall was expanded into a larger church in the 6th and 7th centuries, and many people were buried near the martyrs inside and outside the building. Further extensions were carried out in the 8th century.

Another interesting story; In 1954 Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia became the first foreign head of state to visit the Federal Republic of Germany. His visit brought a breath of the exotic to provincial Bonn, then the provisional capital.

Bonn is also famous for being the birthplace of classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827). Another famous composer, Robert Schumann (1810-1856) lived the last years of his life and died in Bonn.

Bonn (Bonna in Latin; pop. 315,000) was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of reunified Germany until 1999.