Saint Cessianus is a Roman Catholic saint

Saint

A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...

 and martyr

Martyr

A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...

. At the age of eight, he was martyred during the persecutions

Diocletian Persecution

The Diocletianic Persecution was the last and most severe persecution of Christians in the Roman empire. In 303, Emperor Diocletian and Maximian, Galerius, and Constantius issued a series of edicts rescinding the legal rights of Christians and demanding that they comply with traditional Roman...

 of the Roman emperor

Roman Emperor

The Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office although at any given time, a given title was associated with the emperor...

 Diocletian

Diocletian

Diocletian |latinized]] upon his accession to Diocletian . c. 22 December 244  – 3 December 311), was a Roman Emperor from 284 to 305....

 in 303.

Pope Gregory XVI

Pope Gregory XVI

Pope Gregory XVI , born Bartolomeo Alberto Cappellari, named Mauro as a member of the religious order of the Camaldolese, was Pope of the Catholic Church from 1831 to 1846...

 presented Bishop Mathias Loras with the remains of St. Cessianus in 1838. Bishop Loras brought the remains with him to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The remains were placed within a side altar in the new St. Raphael's Cathedral, in Dubuque, Iowa

Dubuque, Iowa

Dubuque is a city in and the county seat of Dubuque County, Iowa, United States, located along the Mississippi River. In 2010 its population was 57,637, making it the ninth-largest city in the state and the county's population was 93,653....

.

After renovations carried out in the mid-1980s at St. Raphael's Cathedral

St. Raphael's Cathedral (Dubuque)

Saint Raphael's is the Catholic cathedral parish for the Archdiocese of Dubuque, in Iowa. The parish is the oldest church of any Christian denomination in the state of Iowa. It is part of the Cathedral Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.-The first years:The Cathedral...

were completed, it was decided to place the remains of St. Cessianus in the new main altar. On November 23, 1986, the wooden box containing the remains of St. Cessianus was installed, during Mass, in the altar where they currently reside.