Veneration His feast is celebrated on 22 January in the
Catholic Church, which places him as the successor of
Dionysius the Areopagite, dating his martyrdom to . Apart from being
patron saint of
Floriana, Publius is also one of the three
patron saints of Malta, along with
St. Paul the Apostle and
St. Agatha of Sicily. In the
Eastern Orthodox Church, however, his feast day is observed on
13 March, and according to an epistle of
Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, he is placed as the successor of
Narcissus of Athens, dating his martyrdom to the period of the
persecution under Marcus Aurelius ().
Rabat,
Mellieħa,
Saint Paul's Bay,
Naxxar and Floriana.
Cultural Reemergence In a 2025 article,
James Aaron Ellul quoted historian Giovanni Bonello who highlighted how Gregorio Xerri’s post-1565 poem Inno della Vittoria elevates Saint Publius as a distinctly Maltese symbol of victory, bypassing the traditional emphasis on foreign religious figures. Bonello argues that this literary recognition initiated a cultural reclamation of Saint Publius, previously underrepresented in devotional and liturgical contexts. The article further notes contemporary calls—particularly marking ~1900 years since his martyrdom—to re-embed him in Malta’s national and ecclesiastical memory ==See also==