Menander

31 March · commentary

CONCERNING ST. MENANDER, MARTYR, AMONG THE GREEKS.

Commentary

Menander, Martyr among the Greeks (Saint)

[1] The distinguished manuscript Greek Synaxarion, which belongs to the Clermont College of the Society of Jesus at Paris, exhibits St. Menander among other Saints on this last day of March: whom the same St. Menander the Martyr is reported by another ancient Greek manuscript which we ourselves copied in the monastery of Grottaferrata in the Roman territory. We examined whether perhaps this Saint might be celebrated on other days, and we found in the same Synaxarion and other Menaia, for the nineteenth of May, Menander joined to St. Patrick, Bishop of Prusa, and other Saints who in the Menologion of Sirletus and the Roman Martyrology are celebrated on the eighteenth of April. But since St. Menander is here reported without companions, we rather consider him to be different; still less do we think he is the same as the one reported in the Latin calendars, whom we gave on the twenty-third of February as an African Martyr with his twelve companions named and twenty-five other anonymous ones. Another Menander is exhibited among the Roman Martyrs by ancient Martyrologies on the Kalends of August, concerning whom more may be sought on that day.

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