The life of St Hermengild, Prince of the Visigoths
On the feast of Pascha, his father sent an Arian bishop to offer him communion, promising that if he received it he would be restored to favor and freedom. Hermenegild refused and rebuked the bishop for his heresy, while an Orthodox priest came to him secretly and gave him true Communion. When his father learned of this, he ordered his own son put to death in the prison where he lay, and Hermenegild died there. Afterward singing was reported heard over his relics, and his father is said to have repented, though he did not himself return to the true faith before his death. Contemporary chroniclers of the time wrote of Hermenegild chiefly as a prince who had rebelled against his father, and it was a later account, written by Pope Gregory the Great, that first told of his death as a martyrdom for the faith. His younger brother, who succeeded their father, brought the Visigoths into the Orthodox Church.
