Saint Marcos, soldado

Mark (died October 25, 269) was a soldier venerated as a saint by the Catholic Church, a martyr, and a co-patron saint of Villasanta. According to the Roman Martyrology, he was part of a group of 46 Roman soldiers who were condemned to death for being Christians during the persecution ordered by Emperor Claudius II. When the executioners arrived, four of them stepped forward and asked to be beheaded first; their request was granted. Mark was one of them; the others were Theodosius, Lucius, and Peter. The bodies were buried in the Catacombs of Priscilla on the Via Salaria, where they remained until 1610. In that year, their remains were exhumed and transferred to Massa Lubrense. The bones of Saint Mark were moved a second time in 1933, when the Cardinal of Milan, Blessed Ildefonso Schuster, gifted them to the parish of Sant'Anastasia in Villasanta. There, they were encased in a wax statue dressed in the uniform of a Roman soldier and placed inside a crystal urn above the altar dedicated to him in the right nave of the parish church. The saint does not appear in the Roman Martyrology; locally, his feast day is celebrated on October 25, the anniversary of his martyrdom.