St Benjamin

Today marked the Feast of St Benjamin.

(There's no pictures of him, he died 1583 years ago, so enjoy the $25 medallion)
St Benjamin was a deacon in Persia in the 420's. The Christians in Persia were living contentedly, but then this Zealotic asshole Abdas got it into his head to burn down "The Temple of Fire". Just because it's ironic doesn't mean it's a good idea. So, the King at the time, Isdegerd, and quite fairly too, said that if Abdas didn't rebuild the Temple of Fire, then he would destroy all the Christian churches. Abdas, being the prick that he was, didn't rebuild the Temple, so Isdegerd destroyed the churches, killed Abdas, and got it into his head that all the Christians must suck, so he persecuted them for 40 or so years.

This is where Benny Boy (he probably hated that name as much as I do) St Benjamin comes in. As I said, he was a deacon, and he was imprisoned for a year. An ambassador from Istanbul Constantinople (not Istanbul) managed to free him, on the condition that he'd stop talking about Christianity. Benjamin, unfortunately, decided that it was his duty to preach the word of God, so he went back into the torture chambers, and was subject to many dreadful punishments for the next 3 or so years, at which point he died.

So, naturally, the Christian church sanctified him for dieing to further their cause, and now he's a martyr. And today, nobody but me celebrates March 31st as the Feast of St Benjamin. You can be sure I'll use it as an excuse to get out of work, though.
Ben