02 June - Saint Blandine, known as of Lyon, is a young Christian slave from Lugdunum (Lyon) who was martyred during the month of July 177 under Emperor Marcus Aurelius. After surviving her incarceration, Blandine is one of six of the forty-seven martyrs of Lyon to be condemned to the arena.
When she is questioned, she systematically keeps the same discourse: "I am a Christian and we do no harm". To encourage their arrest, the authorities accused the martyrs of Lyon of incest and cannibalism. At first, she was given over to the beasts and her companions wondered, seeing her so frail:" "Will she have the strength to hold out to the end? Won't she apostasize?"" Noticing that the beasts don't want to harm her, Blandine, from the top of her pole, prays, sings hymns and encourages her companions to die for Christ. The animals in question are not wild animals, the felines imported from North Africa being too expensive for the Gallic organizers who used animals captured in their country (bears, wild boars, wolves, lynx, bulls).
She is then flogged, placed on a burning grill and delivered in a net to a bull who throws her up in the air with her horns. As she survives, she is sent back to prison, where she remains impressively calm while her surrogate family is massacred. Her calm is shaken, however, by the martyrdom of her friend Pontic. Blandine doubts the solidity of her faith, but Pontique resists the apostasy and dies for his Christian faith. When Pontique dies, Blandine is the last of his forty-seven companions to be tortured. While she is alone in the arena, the Roman spectators are surprised to see that the last survivor is the young girl who seems so fragile. Some talk among themselves: "Never has a woman ever been seen to suffer as bravely as this slave," while others shout to her: "Abjure then! Sacrifice to our gods! You'll have your life," but Blandine doesn't answer, looking up at the sky. She was finally slaughtered in August 177 by the executioner, at the end of the games in which she appeared. Her body and those of the other martyrs are burned, and their ashes are thrown into the Rhone.
Saint Pothin
Only the conditions of his arrest and death are known thanks to a letter that became famous, addressed shortly afterwards by the Church of Lyon to the Church of Asia and reproduced by Eusebius of Caesarea in his Ecclesiastical History. He was arrested in 177 during the reign of Marcus Aurelius together with Blandine and a group of Christians who were the first martyrs of Lyon. Then over 92 years old and infirm, Pothin died in prison, probably on June 2, as a result of the mistreatment inflicted by his executioners.
