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Biography

Marcellinus of Tomi

Portrait of Marcellinus of Tomi

About Marcellinus of Tomi

Marcellinus of Tomi is remembered with his brothers Argeus and Narcissus among Christians who suffered under Licinius. The received account places their deaths at Tomi by the Black Sea around 320.

The Norwegian church notice describes Marcellinus as still a boy when he was enrolled as a recruit. It says that his refusal to undertake military service led to flogging, a long imprisonment and death in the sea. His brothers were remembered as having been beheaded.

The same notice carefully distinguishes the location from Pontus in northern Asia Minor. Its Tomi is the city later called Constantia and now Constanța in Romania, on the Black Sea coast.

The Catholic Encyclopedia also names the three brothers among the martyrs honored at Tomi under Licinius and gives January 2 as their commemoration. It supplies no independent sequence of personal events for Marcellinus.

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