Saints Who Were Warriors Catholic Costumes

Martyr († 790) [July 22]
At the command of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VI, Theophilus led a Byzantine naval fleet into battle with an Arab fleet threatening the island of Cyprus. But as the two fleets converged, Theophilus found himself abandoned as all the other Byzantine ships deserted his own vessel and sailed away. Theophilus was thereupon captured by the Arab fleet. During his imprisonment, he was subjected to repeated attempts to make him apostatize. Steadfastly refusing to deny his faith, he was finally beheaded.

Child Medieval Knight Costume

Saint Sebastian

Martyr (+286) [Jan 20]
Sebastian, of Milan, Italy, went to Rome to become a soldier with the intent of assisting the martyrs suffering there under the Roman persecutions. When two of the arrested Christians, the brothers Marcus and Marcellianus, were in danger of wavering in the profession of their faith, Sebastian passionately exhorted them to remain steadfast. As he spoke, a woman named Zoe with a speech impediment, moved by his words, threw herself at his feet. After Sebastian made the sign of the cross upon the woman’s mouth, her speech was miraculously restored. Thereupon Zoe and her husband Nicostratus, along with the parents of Marcus and Marcellianus, the jailer Claudius and sixteen non-Christian prisoners were converted to the faith. Later the Roman governor Chromatius was converted and released Marcus, Marcellianus, and the converted prisoners. The subsequent renewal of the persecution under the emperor Diocletian led to Sebastian being apprehended and sentenced to death. After being shot through with arrows, Sebastian was left for dead by his executioners. A Christian woman named Irene found him alive and nursed his wounds. Sebastian then went to confront the emperor, reprimanding him for his cruelty to the Christians. Astonished that Sebastian was still alive, Diocletian ordered him to be beaten to death with clubs.

Perhaps your warrior prefers the caped look.

In red or blue, he will cut a dashing figure as he goes to war for the Kingdom of God.

Martyr (†851) [June 5]
Sanctius, a youth of Albi, France, was captured by invading Islamic Moorish forces that had penetrated into southwest Frances. The Moors took him back as a prisoner of war to Moslem-occupied Cordova, Spain, where he was given military training. But when Sanctius openly professed his Christian faith, he was sentenced to a barbaric death in which he was stretched upon the ground and impaled – pierced upon a stake or spike.

Child Valient Knight Costume

Saint Nicholas Von de Flue

Layman and Hermit (1417-1487) [March 22]
Born in Sachseln, Switzerland, Nicholas and his brother became members of the “Friends of God,” a confraternity to which their devout mother belonged, advocating meditation upon Christ’s passion. A farmer and soldier, Nicholas at the age of thirty married a pious girl, Dorothy Wissling, and the two had ten children. Nicholas’ oldest son recalled his father rising from bed during the night to pray until morning, sometimes going out to visit the village church of Saint Nicholas.

Child Gladiator Deluxe Costume

Teen Gladiator Costume

Saint Maurice and Companions

Martyrs († c. 286) [Sept 22]
While leading a military campaign across western Europe, the Roman Emperor Maximian encamped his troops at what is now Martigny, Switzerland. Here he ordered all the soldiers to offer sacrifices to the pagan gods. Among the troops was a contingent of Egyptian men, the Theban Legion, who were Christians. Knowing that they could not obey this order, as it would be a betrayal of their faith, the Christian soldiers withdrew together from the encampment, taking refuge about eight miles to the north. Maximian repeatedly ordered the Theban legionaries to return and join in the pagan sacrifices, but the Thebans refused. At length Maximian issued against the Theban Legion the terrible sentence of “decimation”, the selection of every tenth man for summary execution. The legion remained steadfast, encouraged by their officers, Maurice, Exuperius, and Candidus. When a second round of “decimation” failed to shake the faith of the survivors, Maximian ordered the wholesale slaughter of the entire legion. One source gives the total of those martyred as about six thousand six hundred.

Crusader Play Kit –

Saint Martin of Tours

Soldier, [Nov 11]
One winter while on duty in Amiens, France, as a 4th century Roman soldier, Martin, yet a catechumen, came across a beggar barely dressed in rags and freezing in the cold. Moved with compassion, Martin drew his sword and skillfully slashed his own military cloak, giving half to the poorly clad beggar. Later that night in a dream, Christ appeared wearing the same torn cloak Martin had given to the beggar. Thereafter, Martin was fully received into the Catholic Faith, was released from military duty, settled in France, founded the area’s first monastic community, and went on to become Bishop of Tours. Having endured scourging and exile, Martin courageously and continually refuted the Arian heresy and defended the fullness of the gospel. Upon his death in 397, Martin became the patron saint of France. His military cloak became a relic often carried into battle by France’s army. Whenever in the field, a tent was set up to enshrine the relic of St. Martin’s cloak, or “cappa” in Latin, and the priests who were entrusted to care for it were called “cappellani”. Eventually, all those who tended to the spiritual well-being of military personnel became known as “cappellani”, “chapelains” in French, “chaplains” in English. St. Martin of Tours is the patron saint of soldiers and his feast day is November 11.

TOP Knight Warrior

Saint Louis

Louis was crowned King of France at the early age of eleven. As a boy of exceptional purity of heart, he approached the coronation rites with deep religious devotion, begging God to confer upon him the graces symbolized by the anointing he received during the ceremony. Louis set out from France for the Crusades, intent upon liberating Christian Palestine from occupation by the Muslim Saracen forces of Egypt. While fighting in Egypt, he was taken prisoner by the Muslim Saracens, who were impressed by his virtue and courage. Obtaining a truce with the Egyptians, Louis, following his release, visited the Christians of Palestine, where his example inspired the conversion to Catholicism of forty Saracens in Acre. Louis returned to France in 1254. When on the journey home his ship ran aground, the king prostrated himself before the Blessed Sacrament in the cabin where it was reserved, thereby averting disaster through his prayers. A particularly brutal attack upon the Christians of the Holy Land led Louis to set out for the Crusades again in 1270. After landing in North Africa near Tunis, he fell victim to a typhus epidemic. When on his deathbed the Viaticum was brought to him, he insisted upon rising from his bed to receive the Eucharist on his knees. He died on August 25, 1270.

Child Renaissance Lancelot

Saint Longinus

Martyr (1st century) [March 15]

Longinus is the name given by tradition to the Roman soldier who pierced the Savior’s side on the cross with a lance. His conversion to Christianity is said to have resulted from his witnessing the darkness and earthquake accompanying the death of Christ and from the miraculous healing of an eye ailment he suffered from – a healing that occurred when the blood of our Lord running down the lance touched the soldier’s eyes. Afterwards he was catechized by the apostles and took up a monastic life in Caesarea of Cappadocia, converting many others by his words and example. He was subsequently martyred.

Saint Julius The Veteran

Martyr (+302) [May 27]
Julius, a Roman soldier , was sentenced to death for his Christian faith by the Roman authorities in what is now Bulgaria. As Julius went to his execution, Saint Hesychius, a fellow Christian soldier also facing eminent martyrdom, encouraged him to “go with courage”. He then asked Julius when in heaven to commend him to the martyred soldiers Saint Pasicrates and Valentio , who had died for their faith two days earlier. Julius assured Hesychius that these martyrs were already praying for him.  Before his own beheading, Julius prayed, “Lord Jesus, for whose name I suffer death, vouchsafe to receive my soul in the number of your saints.”

Saint Ladislas

King (c. 1040-1095) [June 27] As king of Hungary, Ladislas was a model of Christian chivalry, courageous in repeatedly defending his country on the battlefield. On one occasion after being wounded he even sped to the rescue of a “damsel in distress.” Having married Adelaide, the daughter of a Bavarian duke, Ladislas was a chaste man of impeccable morals who lived austerely and who recognized the religious and civil freedom of the Jews and Moslems under his rule. Dividing his time between acts of piety and his duties as king, Ladislas worked to reinstate the reforms of his illustrious predecessor on the Hungarian throne, Saint Stephen. The Blessed Pope Urban II enlisted him for the First Crusade to regain Jerusalem, and the kings of France, Spain, and England chose him as their commander–in-chief in this effort. But before he could embark for the Holy Land he suddenly died at the age of fifty-five.

Renaissance Knight for Our Lady

(1481-1537) [ February 8]
Jerome was born in 1481, the son of a noble family of Venice, Italy. He was a good soldier and was put in command of Castelnuovo, a fortress high in the Italian mountains. While defending this post from an invasion by the Venetian troops of Maximilian I, he was taken prisoner and thrown into a dungeon. Chained in prison, he began to regret the choices he had made in his life. He was sorry that he had thought so little about God and for wasting several years in immoral living. Jerome promised the Blessed Mother that he would change his life if she would help him escape this imprisonment. His prayers were answered and he escaped to safety. It is said that Jerome, with grateful heart, went straight to a church in Trevisio where he hung his prison chains in front of Mary’s altar. Jerome was true to his promise to the Blessed Mother and was eventually ordained a priest in Venice.

Saint Henry

Emperor (972-1024) [July 31]
After being tutored in his childhood by the bishop Saint Wolfgang, Henry, a native of Bavaria, became emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and King of Germany at the age of thirty in 1002.When traveling, it was his custom upon arriving in a town to spend much of the first night there in prayer before the altar of a church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom he considered his special patroness. The Mass was the object of his greatest devotion. Henry sometimes found it necessary to defend his subjects in battle. When Barbarian forces ravaged the German diocese of Meersburg, he led his troops to retake the city from the pagan invaders. Being greatly devoted to the angels and saints, he invoked the martyrs Saints Laurence, George and Adrian to protect the men under his command. The day before the battle for Meersburg, Henry had his entire army receive Holy Communion. Loyal to the papacy, the emperor also led his troops into battle against invading Saracen forces in northern Italy that were threatening the Holy See. Henry was married to another saint, Kunegund, the two having agreed to live by vow their entire marriage in perpetual continence. Henry died on July 14 in the year 1024.

Saint Jules

Martyr († c.302) [May 27] Jules was a veteran of the Roman army and a victim of the persecution of the Emperor Diocletian. His twenty-six years of military service did not save him from martyrdom by the sword in Dorostorus on the Danube, when he refused to deny his faith.

Saint Ignatius of Loyola

A native of Azpeitia, Spain, Ignatius had embarked on a life of knighthood when at the age of thirty he was gravely wounded in battle by canon fire. While recuperating, he read the medieval writer Ludolph of Saxony’s Life of Christ and an abridged edition of the medieval collection of saints’ lives known as The Golden Legend. These works inspired him to set aside his chivalrous dreams of serving a young lady of the Spanish court, dedicating himself instead to the service of God. He was confirmed in his resolution when the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to him with the Christ Child in her arms.

Monk (+962) [May 31] Guibert was a pious young military man of Lotharingia (a region straddling the German-Belgian border). He used his authority over his troops to curb their vices and violent impulses. He regularly distributed alms to the poor and to any churches he passed. Guibert resolved to renounce all his possessions after reflecting upon the Gospel passage, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God ” (Mt 19:24). Upon donating his family estate in Gembloux , Belgium , for the founding of a Benedictine monastery, he became a monk at another monastery in Gorze (now in France ). Guibert did not enter the monastery he himself had founded, so as to avoid being lionized by the other monks. Yet he was compelled to intervene twice in the subsequent fate of Gembloux, when his donation of the estate was challenged by rival claims to the property. These disruptions of Giubert’s quiet life at Gorze nonetheless provided him with the opportunity to evangelize the pagan Hungarian and Slav immigrants in the region.  In his final years, he was burdened with a lingering illness.

Saint Edmund

King and Martyr (840-870) [Nov 20] On Christmas Day of 855, Edmund at the age of fifteen was crowned king of England’s West-Saxons. Devout and humble, the young prince spent a year in retirement from the world in order to memorize the Psalms and thus be able to recite them regularly throughout the day. In 870, Danish barbarian raiders invaded Edmund’s kingdom after ravaging much of northern England, where they had destroyed churches and monasteries and had slaughtered numerous priests and religious. Edmund led his small army into battle against the invaders.  However, his forces were vastly outnumbered. The king wished to forestall fruitless bloodshed that he feared would only send the souls of the enemy soldiers to hell.  Therefore, he withdrew in the hope of a peaceful settlement.  When, however, the Danes offered him terms offensive to Christianity and to the rights of his people, Edmund refused to accept them, and was captured by the raiders.  Binding him to a tree, the Danes beat and scourged Edmund, and then shot him with numerous arrows before beheading him.

Saint Barbara

The tale of Barbara, one of the most popular saints in the Middle Ages, is found in “The Golden Legend.” Barbara was believed to have been imprisoned in a tower by her pagan father to protect her from a horde of undesirable suitors, for she was exceedingly beautiful. When her father learned of her unshakable resolve to remain a virgin out of love for God, he fell into a rage, dragged her to the top of a high mountain, and drew his sword upon her. Barbara prayed, “Lord Jesus Christ, I beseech you to hear my prayer for all who have memory of your name and my passion. I pray you, that you will not remember their sins, for you know our fragility.” Upon which her father slew her. Some sources add that St. Barbara’s father was immediately struck by lightening, for which the virgin martyr become known as a patroness of the military, especially artillerymen and military engineers. Known as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, St. Barbara remains a model of faith even at the expense of her earthly life.

Brave Toddler Knight–

Saint Acasius

Martyr (†c. 303) [May 8]
Acacius, a native of Cappadocia (eastern Turkey), was a centurion in the Roman army. After being denounced as a Christian by a Roman tribune, he was brought before a judge and tortured. Acacius was then transferred to Byzantium (Istanbul, Turkey), where he was scourged and beheaded. One of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, Saint Acacius is a patron saint of soldiers.

Saint Candidus and Companions

Martyrs (+320) [March 9]
It was under the eastern Roman Emperor Licinius that forty Roman soldiers of various nationalities were tortured and imprisoned for being Christians, after which they were stripped and exposed to the severe cold on a frozen lake in Sebaste, Armenia. Amidst these torments one of the forty apostatized but his place was soon taken by a guard who was converted by the constancy of the others. Those who survived the cold were put to death by fire. Their martyrdom on this date is recorded by Saint Basil and Saint Gregory of Nyssa.

Saint Camillus de Lelis

Soldier (1550-1614) [July 18]
Saint Camillus de Lellis was born in Chieti in the Abruzzi in 1550. He first entered the military profession, but upon his conversion he devoted himself to the care of the sick. His studies completed, he was ordained to the priesthood and founded a society which established hospitals and cared for the sick. He was given a red cross by Our Lord and this was distributed in the form of a cloth cross during a time of plague. All who wore it were saved. He died in Rome in 1614.

Saint Anthemius

Bishop (8th Century) [Dec 3]
As bishop of Poitiers, France, Anthemius evangelized the western French region of Saintonge. When the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Charlemagne, led his soldiers through southwest France to fight the Islamic Moorish forces occupying Spain, Anthemius accompanied him as his chaplain. It was during a battle between Charlemagne’s men and the Islamic Moors that Anthemius was killed.

Saint Julian of Brioude

Martyr (3rd Century) [August 28]
Julian was a Christian soldier of the Roman army in Gaul ( France ). Among his friends was the Roman tribune and future martyr, Saint Ferreolus.  When the Roman governor of Vienne denounced the Christians, Julian resigned from military service and fled to Auvergne But upon learning that the Roman authorities were seeking to arrest him, Julian surrendered himself near the village of Brioude , saying, “I have been too long in this bad world; I would be with Jesus.” No sooner had he spoken than he was set upon and beheaded.

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