Feast: September 27 (Traditional Roman Calendar)
Hagiography:
Cosmas and Damian were twin brothers, born in Arabia during the third century. They were trained in the art of medicine, but unlike many physicians of their age, they were renowned not for avarice but for their charity. They practiced their profession entirely without fee, tending to the sick out of love for Christ and thereby earning the title “Anargyri” (from the Greek: without silver).
Their healing was not merely natural, but often miraculous: they combined the use of medical skill with fervent prayer, and their cures became signs of the power of Christ over both body and soul. Their fame spread far and wide, and through them many were converted from paganism to the faith of the true God.
During the persecutions under Diocletian, the fame of Cosmas and Damian could not remain hidden. They were seized by the prefect Lysias and ordered to renounce Christ. With steadfast courage they refused. Many torments were devised against them: they were chained, cast into the sea, thrown into fire, stretched upon the rack, scourged, and crucified. Yet in each torment they were miraculously preserved, so that even their persecutors were confounded. Finally, together with their three brothers—Anthimus, Leontius, and Euprepius—they were beheaded by the sword, receiving the glorious crown of martyrdom.
Their relics were venerated from early times in the East, and devotion to them soon spread to Rome. Pope St. Felix IV (†530) built a magnificent basilica in their honor within the Roman Forum, uniting it with the Temple of Romulus. This church, richly adorned with mosaics, still stands as a witness to their cult in the heart of Christendom. The names of Ss. Cosmas and Damian were also inscribed into the Roman Canon of the Mass, where they are invoked among the glorious company of early martyrs.
Patronage and Legacy
Ss. Cosmas and Damian are honored as patrons of physicians, surgeons, and pharmacists. Their lives exemplify the Christian ideal of charity united with professional excellence, sanctifying the practice of medicine through the gratuitous service of the poor and the afflicted.
The traditional antiphons and collects of their feast day celebrate them as instruments of divine healing, whose charity on earth merited eternal glory in heaven.
📜 Collect from the Traditional Roman Missal:
“Grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord, that we may never suffer the evils of body or soul: and by the glorious intercession of Thy holy Martyrs, Cosmas and Damian, may we be delivered from all adversities which beset us. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ…”