Hagiographia · Eastern Orthodox · Roman Catholic

Sergius and Bacchus

Two officers of the Roman imperial court, stripped of rank and paraded in women's dress for refusing to sacrifice, who died in Syria and became the great warrior saints of the Christian East. In Serbia their day is Srđevdan, 20 October.

Feast day: October 20 / 7 October old calendar (Srđevdan, Serbian Orthodox); October 7 (Roman Catholic)
Era: late 3rd / early 4th century; the Passion is a 5th-century text
Region: Resafa (Sergiopolis), Syria; kept as a krsna slava across the Serbian lands
Status: canonical (great martyrs; warrior saints of the Christian East)
Patronage: soldiers and armies, shoemakers and farmers (Serbian folk tradition; the ox saint of Srđevdan), protection and steadfastness under trial

According to the tradition, the humiliation was staged to be seen. Two of the emperor’s own officers, men who had stood near the throne and been trusted with rank and command, were stripped of their rank and their gold collars and led through the streets in women’s clothing, in chains, for the crowd to jeer at. The shaming was supposed to break them in public, and by the same account it did the opposite: Sergius and Bacchus went east to their deaths as steadily as they had once served.

Officers of the court

Sergius and Bacchus were soldiers of high rank in the Roman army, and the tradition places them at the imperial court, honoured for their courage and loyalty. Sergius is remembered as primicerius and Bacchus as secundarius, officers over frontier troops. The emperor, named in the tradition as Maximian, valued them, and the men he trusted most were quietly Christians.

The break came when they were brought to a temple and told to make the offering to the gods with the rest of the court, and they refused. What had been the emperor’s affection turned to anger, and the two officers were handed over to be made an example of.

The road east

Their first punishment was shame rather than death: stripped of the insignia of their rank, they were put in women’s dress and led through the city, a reversal of everything a soldier was supposed to be. Then they were sent east, to the province on the Euphrates frontier, and given to the governor Antiochus.

Antiochus, the tradition says, owed his own position in part to Sergius, who had once spoken for him. Now he had to choose between the man who had helped him and the emperor’s order, and he chose the order. He pressed them to save themselves by giving up Christ, and both refused.

Bacchus died first, beaten by the governor’s soldiers until the blows killed him. Sergius was kept longer: he was made to walk a long road in iron sandals fitted with nails driven through the soles, and at the end of it, at Resafa in the Syrian desert, he was beheaded. The tradition dates their deaths to around the year 303, in the last and worst of the Roman persecutions.

Did You Know?

The Passion that tells this story is a Greek text from about the middle of the fifth century, more than a hundred years after the events it describes, and the saints’ cult is not clearly attested before around 425. The vivid details, the women’s dress, the nailed shoes, are what the tradition hands down, and the Church keeps them as the memory of the two martyrs rather than as a court record.

The city that took his name

The place where Sergius was buried, the desert town of Resafa, grew into one of the great pilgrimage centres of the Christian East and was renamed Sergiopolis, the city of Sergius. The emperor Justinian fortified it and raised shrines there, and built a church to the two saints in Constantinople as well.

Sergius became a soldier’s saint whom armies invoked, and his cult spread far beyond the empire, out among the Arab tribes of the frontier and the Christian Ghassanids, who took him as a protector. The officer the emperor had tried to shame in front of a crowd ended as one of the most honoured military saints in the world, and the two stayed paired in the tradition, Sergius and Bacchus, as they had been in life.

Srđevdan

The two soldiers travelled a long way into the Serbian calendar. In the Serbian lands their feast on 20 October (7 October on the old calendar) is Srđevdan, from Srđ, the Serbian form of Sergius, and a great many households keep it as their krsna slava. Here the warrior saint of the Syrian desert becomes a saint of the land and the plough team: Sergius is an ox saint, and on his day the oxen are not harnessed and the field is left unploughed. The folk customs of the day are kept on its own page.

On an icon of the two, the same detail hangs at each neck: the maniakion, a heavy gold collar. It was the sign of their high office at court, the honour they were given and then stripped of. The tradition remembers that the emperor had iron collars hung on them when he cast them down, and the painters kept the gold. The collar of their disgrace became the collar they wear in glory.

Sources

Bibliography. The same list is held in the article’s frontmatter for the citation tools that read it programmatically.

The Passion of Saints Sergius and Bacchus (Greek, Passio antiquior), the 5th-century martyr-account that is the source of the story
Orthodox synaxarion for the Martyrs Sergius and Bacchus (7 October / 20 October)
The Catholic Encyclopedia, ‘Sts. Sergius and Bacchus’ (New Advent)
Encyclopaedia Britannica, ‘Saint Sergius’
E. Key Fowden, The Barbarian Plain: Saint Sergius between Rome and Iran (University of California Press, 1999), on Resafa / Sergiopolis and the cult
Serbian ethnographic and church coverage of Srđevdan (Srđevdan, 7/20 October), on the slava and its folk customs

Primary Sources

The Passion of Saints Sergius and Bacchus (Greek, *Passio antiquior*), the 5th-century martyr-account that is the source of the story
Orthodox synaxarion for the Martyrs Sergius and Bacchus (7 October / 20 October)
The Catholic Encyclopedia, 'Sts. Sergius and Bacchus' (New Advent)
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'Saint Sergius'
E. Key Fowden, *The Barbarian Plain: Saint Sergius between Rome and Iran* (University of California Press, 1999), on Resafa / Sergiopolis and the cult
Serbian ethnographic and church coverage of Srđevdan (Srđevdan, 7/20 October), on the slava and its folk customs

Common Questions

Who were Sergius and Bacchus?

Two senior officers of the Roman army who served at the imperial court and were held in high honour, until it emerged that they were Christians. The tradition names the emperor as Maximian. When they refused to take part in a sacrifice to the pagan gods, they were disgraced and sent east to be tried, and both were killed for their faith around the year 303. Sergius in particular became one of the most venerated soldier saints of the Christian East.

How did they die?

According to the Passion, they were first publicly humiliated: stripped of their military insignia and paraded through the streets in women’s clothing to shame them. Sent to the governor Antiochus in the Syrian east, Bacchus was beaten and died under the blows. Sergius was made to walk a long road in iron sandals fitted with nails, and was then beheaded at Resafa. The account is a 5th-century text, and the Church keeps it as the tradition of their martyrdom.

What is the golden collar in their icons?

It is the maniakion, a heavy gold torc worn at the neck, and it is the mark by which the pair is recognised in Orthodox iconography. It signified high imperial office, the honour they held at court. Icon painters kept it as a fixed feature, and it is read as a memory of the disgrace as well as the glory, since the emperor is said to have had iron collars hung on their necks when he cast them down.

What is Srđevdan?

Srđevdan is the Serbian folk name for the feast of Sergius and Bacchus on 20 October (7 October on the old calendar); Srđ is the Serbian form of Sergius. Many families keep it as their krsna slava. In folk custom Sergius is an ox saint: farmers do not plough or work the oxen on his day. The customs are kept on the day’s own page, Srđevdan.