May 12
St. Pancras (d. 304?)
St. Pancras Railway Station in London got its name from an early Christian martyr about whom we have very little information. He is said to have been martyred at 14 during the persecution of Diocletian. He was buried in a cemetery which later was named after him. Pope Gregory the Great built a monastery for Benedictines and, when Augustine of Canterbury (a Benedictine) came to England, he named the first church he erected after Pancras. Hence the name of the railway station.
Pancras (Pancratius) appears in fictionalized form in Cardinal Wiseman’s novel Fabiola. German farmers had a saying that three saints whose names are similar—Pancras, Servatz and Bonifatz—were the “ice men” because it was often unseasonably chilly on their feast days, May 12, 13, 14.
