Nabor and Felix

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Saints Nabor and Felix
Saints Nabor and Felix (foreground), with the Virgin Mary, Francis of Assisi, Claire of Assisi, John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene, and Catherine of Alexandria. Orazio Samacchini, ca. 1570.
Died	~303 AD
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Feast	July 12
Attributes	Two young men in military attire
Saints Portal

Saints Nabor and Felix were martyred under the reign of Diocletian in 303. A tomb in Milan is believed to contain their remains, or relics.

In the apocryphal Acts of Saints Nabor and Felix (which are imitated from the Acts of other martyrs (such as those of Saint Firmus and Saint Rusticus), the two are said to be Roman soldiers serving under Maximian. They were condemned in Milan and executed by beheading in Lodi.

[edit] Veneration

Saint Ambrose translated their relics from their place of interment outside the walls of Milan. A church was built over their new tomb, as recorded by Saint Paulinus of Nola in his life of Saint Ambrose. Tradition states that Savina of Milan was martyred while praying at the tomb of Nabor and Felix.

When Frederick Barbarossa captured Milan in 1158, he gave some of the relics of Saints Felix and Nabor to Rainald of Dassel, archbishop of Cologne, who brought them to his episcopal see.^[1] The relics associated with Felix and Nabor are situated in a chapel in Cologne Cathedral.^[2] Nabor and Felix are depicted on the 1181 Shrine of the Three Kings by Nicholas of Verdun in Cologne Cathedral.^[3]

As well as being recognized as saints of the Roman Catholic Church, to be honoured on 12 July,^[4], they were included in the General Roman Calendar from the twelfth to the twentieth century^[5] for commemoration wherever the Roman Rite was celebrated (see General Roman Calendar as in 1954).

The Desventuradas Islands, San Félix and San Ambrosio, were sighted by Juan Fernández in 1574. Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa wrote in 1579 that "they are now called after St Felix and St Ambor [i.e. Felix and Nabor])". However, by linguistic corruption, the name of the martyr Ambor (Nabor) became confused with that of the more famous bishop Saint Ambrose (San Ambrosio).^[6]

[edit] Notes

^ The relics of Gregory of Spoleto were brought there at the same time.
^ Catholic Culture : Missing Page Redirect
^ Rosa Giorgi, Saints: A Year in Faith and Art (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2006).
^ Martyrologium Romanum (Libreria Vaticana 2001 ISBN 88-209-7210-7)
^ Calendarium Romanum (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1969), p. 129
^ B. Glanvill Corney, "The Isles of San Felix and San Nabor," The Geographical Journal, Vol. 56, No. 3 (September 1920), pp. 196-200