died c. 310
A senator beheaded on Crete in 310 for confessing Christ.
The Holy Martyr Lucius the Senator
Lucius is an early-fourth-century martyr commemorated in the Eastern Orthodox calendar on August 20. The sources agree that he held the rank of senator, that he suffered during the persecutions of the early 300s, and that he was put to death by beheading for confessing his faith in Christ. According to the synaxarion tradition followed by the Orthodox Church in America, he was beheaded on the island of Crete in the year 310.
A parallel hagiographic tradition, reflected in other liturgical lists and in the Western martyrologies, locates Lucius's story in Cyrene and Cyprus rather than Crete. Because the surviving notices are brief and the recensions differ on the place of his martyrdom, his life is best read as one early martyr's witness preserved in two overlapping but not identical strands of tradition.
In the account preserved by the Orthodox Church in America, Lucius is identified simply as a senator who was beheaded by the sword on the island of Crete in the year 310 because he confessed his faith in Christ. This notice is brief and supplies no extended narrative beyond his rank, the manner and place of his death, and the year.
Several other liturgical lists and the Western martyrological tradition attach the name Lucius the senator to Cyprus rather than Crete. In this strand he is described as a councilor of Cyrene in Libya who was converted to Christianity after witnessing the constancy of Theodore, bishop of Cyrene, during his martyrdom.
Following his baptism, this account relates, Lucius persuaded the governor (named in the Western notices as Dignian) also to embrace the faith. Together they went to Cyprus, where, seeing other Christians crowned for confessing the Lord, Lucius offered himself voluntarily and was beheaded, receiving the same crown of martyrdom.
The two traditions agree on the essentials honored at his commemoration — his senatorial rank, his death by beheading around the year 310, and his August 20 feast — but diverge on the place of his martyrdom. The relationship between the senator beheaded on Crete and the councilor of Cyrene martyred in Cyprus is not resolved by the surviving sources, and the parallel account is here noted only as such.
OCA places him on Crete; a parallel tradition links a Lucius of Cyrene/Cyprus.