Italian
The story of Saints Nazarius and Celsus belongs to the oldest and most venerable origins of the Church of Milan. Their memory is linked to the great martyrial tradition of the Ambrosian Church and to the extraordinary testimony of faith of the Christians persecuted during the Roman Empire.
ITALY. According to hagiographic tradition, Nazarius was a Christian of the first generation, even connected to the preaching of the Apostle Peter. This element naturally belongs to ancient tradition and cannot be documented with the same certainty as we know other historical data; however, it reveals something very important: the ancient Church perceived Nazarius as a man deeply embedded in the continuity of apostolic preaching.
Nazario would have received a solid Christian education and, driven by the desire to proclaim the Gospel, would have embarked on a long missionary journey. His preaching would have taken him outside of Italy, towards Gaul, where he would have met the young Celso.
Celso was still young, but he had, according to tradition, a particular disposition to faith. Nazario instructed him in Christianity and baptized him. From that moment on, a spiritual relationship was established between the two that would also become an apostolic communion.
This is one of the most beautiful characteristics of their story. Nazarius and Celsus are not remembered only as two men who died together. They are two people who walked together on the path of faith. Nazarius is the preacher, the evangelizer, the one who transmits the faith received. Celsus is the young man who embraces that faith and becomes a witness in turn. The master and the disciple thus end up united in the same fate.
Their missionary activity would lead them to northern Italy and finally to Milan. The city, then one of the most important in the Roman Empire, was a major political, economic, and cultural center. But the Christian presence was also significant by then and, at certain times, could become the target of persecution.
The tradition places the martyrdom of Nazarius and Celsus during the persecution of Diocletian, generally around 304. The two were arrested and sentenced to death for their faith.
Martyrdom constitutes the climax of their story. They are not presented as political heroes, nor as rebels against the Empire. They are witnesses to a faith they cannot renounce. The word martyr comes from the Greek μάρτυς, martys, “witness.” The martyr is one who testifies. Their death is not the pursuit of death, but the ultimate consequence of fidelity to Christ when the confession of faith is placed before the alternative of apostasy.
The Milanese tradition holds the memory of the two martyrs in particular reverence. But the most important moment of their ecclesiastical memory would have occurred almost a century after their death.
In 395, Saint Ambrose, then bishop of Milan, is said to have discovered their bodies. The finding of the relics of the martyrs was an event of extraordinary importance for the early Church. It was not simply about recovering human remains: the Christian community recognized in the relics the concrete sign of a life given to Christ.
Ambrose, great bishop and doctor of the Church, immediately understood the ecclesial value of the discovery. The memory of Nazarius and Celsus thus became an integral part of the Christian history of Milan.
The tradition also states that Ambrose was deeply struck by the condition of the relics and that the body of Nazarius appeared extraordinarily well-preserved. Beyond the miraculous elements present in the hagiographic account, what emerges with particular strength is Ambrose’s desire to present to the faithful the memory of the martyrs as a living reality.
The cult of martyrs, in fact, was not a cult of death. It was, on the contrary, a celebration of the victory of life in Christ. Nazarius and Celsus were dead, but their testimony continued to speak to the Church. Their bodies, preserved within the Christian community, reminded the faithful that the Gospel was not a theory, but a faith capable of radically transforming existence.
The Basilica of San Nazaro in Brolo, in Milan, still preserves the memory of the great devotion dedicated to Nazarius. The presence of the relics and the continuity of veneration testify to the deep-rooted memory of the martyrs in the Ambrosian tradition.
Nazario and Celso can be seen as two inseparable figures: the master and the disciple, the evangelizer and the young convert, the mature man in faith and the one who embraces that faith up to the supreme gift.
Their story also teaches that Christian holiness is never an individualistic reality. Faith is received and transmitted. A man encounters Christ through the testimony of another man and, after receiving faith, becomes a witness himself.
Nazarius leads Celso to Christ; Celso, together with Nazarius, then leads others to the testimony of the Gospel through martyrdom. The Church of Milan, centuries later, would receive their testimony again through Saint Ambrose.
It is a kind of spiritual chain: the Apostles proclaim Christ; the missionaries transmit the faith; the martyrs seal it with their blood; the Church preserves their relics and passes on their memory to future generations. It is this continuity that makes Nazarius and Celsus such precious figures in the history of the early Church.
