Feastday: June 26
Patron: of abandoned people, torture victims, Castro Urdiales, Spain
Birth: 912
Death: 925
Martyr in Cordoba, Spain. Also called Pelayo, he was a young boy of Asturias who was left by his uncle as a hostage to the Moors of Cordoba. As he remained unransomed for three years, the Cordoban ruler Emir Abd al-Rahman III offered to free him if he would but renounce his Christianity and become a Muslim. He refused, and the emir ordered him tortured. Pelagius died after six hours of agony. Rhoswitha of Gandersheim, a Benedictine poetess, composed a poem in his honor.
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