Saints Crispin and Crispinian, Martyrs.

Saints Crispin and Crispinian, Mm

Saints Crispin & Crispinian

Crispin, and his brother Crispinian, were preachers of Christ, who, in imitation of the Apostle Paul, supported themselves by their own handwork. During the day they preached Christ, and at night they worked a shoemakers. They came from Rome to spread the Faith in Gaul, toward the middle of the third century. And there they abode in Soissons, where they astonished the heathen by their words and lives, and led many to Christ. For which reason they were tortured in divers cruel ways by Rictiovarus, under the Emperor Maximian, by whose order they were beheaded, about the year 285. According to a local tradition at Faversham in Kent, during one time of their persecutions they fled thither, and followed their trade of shoemaking in that place. They are said to have taken no payment for their work, unless it was offered to them. By which means they disposed men to listen to the Gospel. And they are venerated as the Patrons of shoemakers, cobblers, and other workers in leather.
　

Collect:

O God, which makest us glad with the yearly festival of blessed Crispin and Crispinian, thy holy Martyrs, grant, we beseech thee, that as we do rejoice in their merits, so we may be enkindled to follow them in all virtuous and godly living, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.