Roman Martyrs
Acta Sanctorum, May 29
Source text: Public Domain. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://actasanctorum.org/may/day-29/roman-martyrs.html
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ON THE HOLY ROMAN MARTYRS

VICTOR AND SCYRENEUS

AT TOURNAI IN BELGIUM.

From a letter of the Rev. Father Joseph Ignatius of S. Antony, Discalced Carm.

[Commentary]

Victor, Roman Martyr, at Tournai in Belgium (S.)

Scyreneus, Roman Martyr, at Tournai in Belgium (S.)

D. P.

Tournai, an Episcopal city of Belgium
on the Scheldt, has a notable
Convent of Discalced Carmelite nuns,
in the year MDCXIX under the title of S. Joseph
erected and founded.
To the church of this nunnery
from the city of Rome, Innocent
X the Supreme Pontiff assenting, in the year one thousand
six hundred and fiftieth, on the twenty-ninth
day of May, which was the Sunday after the Ascension
of the Lord, were translated the bodies of the holy Martyrs
Victor and Scyreneus, with great pomp,
and concourse of people: the day of which Translation and Deposition
each year is solemnly celebrated
on the Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension of the Lord,
which almost always falls in the month of May, the biers
of the Martyrs, with the highest artifice from gilded wood
fabricated, being exposed on the high altar.

[2] So several years ago to me wrote the Rev. Fr. Joseph
Ignatius of S. Antony, Discalced Carmelite
Gallo-Belgian, praised for nobility, erudition, and skill in ancient
matters, before Volume 12 of the Spicilegium of d'Achery;
to us also singularly to be praised for diligence and zeal
in aiding our labor, and transcribing with his own hand,
what he believed pertained hither, monuments. He was living,
when the first part of May was printed; and though by a few
weeks before the printing was finished he departed from
life, yet already printed were all things, in which to be named
by me more specially he was; unless such a commendation,
as much as among fair estimators of praise, so much envy
it would have had among others, more pertinaciously adhering to those, to which
he himself attributed less, prejudices. But now, since death
immature for age, mature for merit, the great hopes of the Order
and ours cut down; this at least of solace
left to us, that openly henceforth, and without fear of creating
trouble to him, I can profess, that scarcely is there anyone in the whole
Order, to whom I owe more, and that he should live longer would more
have been for the common good. Which here for the sake of gratitude is added;
may they take it in good part who knew him living.
