Irenaeus, Irene and Peregrinus
The Holy Martyrs Irenaeus, Irene and Peregrinus of Thessalonica
Martyr · d. c. 304
Commemorated 5 May — Martyrdom by fire at Thessalonica
Irenaeus, Irene and Peregrinus are three martyrs commemorated on May 5 who, according to the Latin martyrologies and the Greek synaxaristic notices that follow them, suffered at Thessalonica in the persecution of Diocletian, refusing to sacrifice to the idols and being cast into the fire. Nothing further is transmitted about them. Their dossier is unusually vexed: the Latin manuscript tradition varies, the localisation at Thessalonica has been questioned, and the presence of an Irene in the company on the very day of the Great-Martyr Irene — and in the very city associated with the other virgin-martyr Irene of Thessalonica of April 16 — makes this small commemoration one of the most easily confused in the calendar.
The whole notice is that these three confessed Christ, would not offer sacrifice, and were burned. The Roman Martyrology's entry for May 5 places the martyrdom at Thessalonica in Macedonia and names them Irenaeus, Peregrinus and Irene; the Greek synaxaristic collections, which take up the same three names, follow the same localisation and assign the death to the reign of Diocletian (284–305), whence the conventional date about 304, the year of the Great Persecution in Macedonia.
The names themselves are the only other material. Irenaeus and Irene are the masculine and feminine of the same Greek word, εἰρήνη, "peace"; Peregrinus is Latin, "the stranger" or "pilgrim," a name and an epithet at once. Whether the three were of one household, of one arrest, or merely of one day in a commemoration list, no source says. No Acts, no passion and no local Thessalonian tradition of them survives, in a city otherwise rich in martyr-memory — which is itself part of the difficulty described below.
Feast and commemoration
May 5 (church date; Old Calendar civil May 18). The Greek synaxaristic collections carry them on this day, as does the Roman Martyrology; the Slavic menaia do not. They have no service of their own, and the day's hymnody belongs to the Great-Martyr Irene, with whom they share the date and, in the case of their Irene, the name.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of martyrs)
Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their contest received incorruptible crowns from Thee, our God; for possessing Thy strength they cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. By their intercessions save our souls.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
No icon of these three has been identified, and none is expected: a company known from a martyrology line, without Acts and without a shrine, does not acquire an iconography. They would be painted, if at all, as two men and a woman standing together in tunic and mantle, each with the martyr's cross, with the flames of their passion beneath or beside them. Images inscribed "St Irene" belong to the great-martyr of this same day, and images of "St Irenaeus" almost always to the bishop of Sirmium or to Irenaeus of Lyons; neither may be used for this commemoration.
Disputed questions
- The Thessalonian localisation. The medieval Latin codices of the martyrologies differ among themselves in the details of this entry, and scholars working on them have questioned whether Irenaeus and Peregrinus in fact died at Thessalonica at all, the notice having the appearance of names drawn together from more than one source and given a place by a later hand. Thessalonica has an abundant and well-documented martyr-record — Demetrius, the three sisters of April 16, Nestor, Matrona — in which these three leave no trace.
- Which Irene? The same critical discussion asks whether the Irene of this company is a distinct person at all, or a doublet of one of the other martyrs of the name; the pull of the two famous Irenes — the great-martyr of May 5 and the sister of Agape and Chionia at Thessalonica — is exactly the kind of force that generates and multiplies such entries. This repository keeps the company as the calendars keep it, and records the doubt rather than resolving it.
- Not to be confused with Irene the Great Martyr, whose feast is the same day, May 5, and whose popular epithet is likewise "of Thessalonica"; nor with the virgin-martyr Irene of the three sisters Agape, Chionia and Irene of Thessalonica (April 16), who also suffered under Diocletian and also by fire — the closest of all the resemblances; nor with Sophia and Irene of Egypt (September 18).
- Not to be confused, on the masculine side, with Irenaeus of Sirmium, the young bishop beheaded at Sirmium about 304 and commemorated March 26 (August 23 in some Western and Slavic calendars), whose authentic Acts survive; nor with Irenaeus of Lyons, nor with Irenaeus the deacon of Rome. The name Irenaeus attaches to several martyrs of the Diocletianic period in the Danubian and Balkan provinces, and the entries have influenced one another in the martyrologies.