St. Benjamin was a Christian Martyr who lived in Persia around the year 420 A.D. during a forty-year period when Christians were heavily persecuted and submitted to the cruelest tortures. Among those who suffered was St. Benjamin, a Deacon, who had been imprisoned a year for his Faith. At the end of this period, an ambassador of the Emperor of Constantinople obtained his release on the stipulation that he would never preach about religion. Of course, this did not stop Benjamin. He declared that it was his duty to preach Christ and that he could not be silent. He was again apprehended and sentenced to death in the most terrible agony. St. Benjamin’s feast day is March 31, and he is known as the patron saint of preachers.
