St. Cosmas and Damian

Saints Cosmas and Damian are one of the most beloved pairs in Christian history—twin brothers, doctors, and martyrs.

Who were they?
They were twins born in Arabia in the 3rd century to Christian parents. They studied medicine and practiced in the seaport of Aegea, in Cilicia—today southern Turkey.

What made them famous was not just their skill, but their ethic. They refused to charge for their services. In Greek they are called the Anargyroi—the “sleeveless” or “moneyless ones,” physicians who went about curing people gratis. In the West they are described as the brothers “who brought people to Christ by caring for their health.”

Because of that, along with St. Luke, they are the patrons of physicians, surgeons, pharmacists, dentists and midwives, and are often represented with medical emblems — a medicine jar, a surgical box, or a palm of martyrdom.

Martyrdom
During the Great Persecution under Emperor Diocletian around 303 AD, they were arrested by order of Lysias, the Prefect of Cilicia, and tortured into recanting their Christian faith. According to tradition, they remained steadfast and were beheaded with three other brothers — Leontius, Anthimus, and Eutropius.

Like many early saints, their story is wrapped in legend. One of the most famous medieval miracles attributed to them is the “Miracle of the Black Leg” — where the saints, appearing in a dream, transplanted the leg of a recently deceased Ethiopian Moor to replace a white patient’s cancerous leg.

More than one pair
The Church actually remembers three different pairs with the same names, and people often.

They have churches dedicated to them from Rome—where the Basilica of Santi Cosma e Damiano in the Roman Forum has beautiful 6th-century mosaics—to all over Central Europe, including Austria and the Czech lands. Their cult was especially strong because in the pagan world, healing gods like Asclepius fulfilled a similar role, and Cosmas and Damian took that place in a Christian context.