Sts Aurelius, Sabigotho, Felix, Liliosa and George 27 July 852

The six-month lull that followed the executions of Gusemindus and Servus Dei ended in July with the deaths of five more Orthodox: Aurelius, Sabigotho, Felix, Liliosa, and George. Aurelius father was, like Floras, a Muslim who had married a Christian. Apparently orphaned at an early age, the boy had been raised by a paternal aunt, who had directed his studies toward Arabic literature. But again like Flora, Aurelius harboured a secret longing for Christianity and began to seek out priests for his instruction. When he had come of age, his relatives selected what they thought to be a suitable spouse, not knowing that the young woman, Sabigotho, was also a secret Christian. In her case, both of her parents had been Muslims, but when her widowed mother remarried, she happened to pick a clandestine Orthodox who had succeeded in converting his new wife. At the time of Sabigothos marriage to Aurelius, she had long since embraced the faith of her stepfather.

Aurelius had a relative named Felix who, to make things even more complicated, had been born of Orthodox parents and converted to Islam, only to decide that he had made a mistake. In Muslim eyes, this also constituted apostasy, so he too had to practise his Christianity in private. But he managed to find sympathy in his spouse Liliosa, who, like Sabigotho, was also a secret Orthodox.

The two couples concealed their faith for some years, and perhaps would have continued to do so, had not Aurelius witnessed the flogging and humiliation of a Christian merchant, John, who had indiscreetly sworn by the name of Muhammad. Struck either by the injustice of the punishment or the fortitude of the victim, Aurelius decided that it was time to make public his faith regardless of the consequences. Together with Sabigotho, he adopted a regime of penitence in preparation for martyrdom. For one thing they transformed their marital relationship into a fraternal one so as to generate spiritual offspring to match the two children they had produced in their previous life.

They also began frequenting the Cordoban prison where they visited not only the merchant John, but also sought advice from the imprisoned priest Eulogius, who was to become their biographer. More significantly, Sabigotho met Flora and Maria. In fact, she frequently visited their cell...and stayed at night as if she herself were shackled, not only to console the two soldiers, but to confide in them her own intention to die. Her devotion to the confessors paid off. During the vigil that Sabigotho kept after the execution of Flora and Maria, the two virgins appeared to her in all their newly-won martyrs glory, and promised that she would ultimately join them. Sabigothos time, they said, would be at hand, when a foreign monk arrived to share her fate.

With renewed vigour, Sabigotho and Aurelius readied themselves for what they now felt certain was their destiny. They sold all their worldly possessions and spent their last days at Tabanos, where they not only prepared for their deaths but arranged for the care of their children. Finally the promised sign appeared, in the form of a monk from Palestine named Fr George.

Born in Bethlehem, Fr George was a monk in the large and famous monastery of St Sabbas just south of Jerusalem. From there he knew not only Greek, Latin and Arabic but had engaged in ascetic sacrifices, which would win for him the unbounded admiration of, among others, Eulogius. The chain of events leading up to his arrival in Cordoba began when his Abbot had sent him on a mission to solicit donations from monasteries in North Africa. There George had found the church so oppressed by the incursion of tyrants that he decided to turn to Spain. Again he had been surprised by the affliction he found. Leaving the city of Cordoba, he had proceeded north to Tabanos, where the Abbess Elizabeth, apparently recognizing him as a portent, referred him to Sabigotho. A dream had thus identified him as the one for whom she had been waiting, and henceforth the monk and the couple sought martyrdom together. Soon Felix and Liliosa, having sold all of their property, joined them as well.

When the day of their public profession arrived, the women entered a church with unveiled faces and were immediately detected and arrested as apostate Muslims. Meanwhile Aurelius, after making the final arrangements for his children, waited at home with Felix in anticipation of his own arrest. The soldiers came shortly afterwards and marched them all to the magistrate. At first, the guards ignored George. Their task had been to arrest the husbands of the apostates. But Fr Georges views on Islam sufficed to bind his fate with that of the others.

As in the case of Flora, the newly discovered apostates were granted every opportunity to change their minds, but remained unmoved: Any cult which denies the divinity of Christ, does not profess the essence of the Holy Trinity, refutes baptism, defames Christians and denigrates the priesthood, we consider to be damned. After a four day imprisonment, the captives still refused to relent. The authorities, who had not heard Fr Georges earlier views, gave him permission to leave. The monk responded with a new denunciation of Islam and on 27 July 852 five more Orthodox were martyred.