Maris, Martha, Abachum and Audifax

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Maris, Martha, Abachum and Audifax
Martyrs
Born	3rd century, Persia
Died	270, Nymphae Catabassi, near Rome
Venerated in	Catholicism (formerly)
Major shrine	Rome
Feast	February 19
Catholic cult suppressed	1969
Saints Portal

Saints Maris, Martha, Abachum and Audifax (d. 270) (Feast Day: February 19) were four saints in the same family martyred in 270 for sympathizing with and burying the bodies of faithful Christians.

The family's assistance to the Christians exposed them to the imperial vengeance; they were seized and delivered to the judge Muscianus, who, unable to persuade them to abjure their faith, condemned them to various tortures. After failing in torture, Maris and his two sons were beheaded at a place called Nymphae Catabassi, thirteen miles from Rome, and their bodies burnt. Martha was instead cast into a well.

A Roman lady named Felicitas, having succeeded in securing the half-consumed remains of the father and sons and also the mother's body from the well, had the sacred relics secretly interred in a catacomb, on the thirteenth before the Kalends of February (January 20). Their relics were found at Rome in 1590 and are now kept principally at Rome; part in the church of Saint Adrian, part in that of Saint Charles, and in that of Saint John of Calybite. Eginhart, son-in-law and secretary of Charlemagne, deposited a portion of these relics, which had been sent him from Rome, in the abbey of Selghenstadt, of which he was the founder.