Name and Appearance
According to Eastern tradition, the saint was originally named Reprebos (Reprobus) before his baptism, after which he was called Christophoros, 'Christ-bearer.' The Greek Martyrdom of Christophoros gives a frankly legendary portrait of him as a Cynocephalus — a man with a dog's head — drawn from a tribe of cannibals and unable to speak intelligibly until divine grace gave him the power of speech.
Orthodox tradition more commonly describes the saint simply as a tall man of tremendous strength. Some rare icons depict him with the head of a dog, but such images are not generally supported by the Orthodox Church. A further explanation attributes the dog-head motif to a geographic feature near Thessaly called Cynoscephale ('dog's heads'), with some later Eastern traditions instead describing the saint as originally handsome.
Conversion of Callinika and Aquilina
According to the Greek Martyrdom of Christophoros, the emperor sent two women, Aquilina and Callinika (Kallinike), to seduce the saint. Instead of yielding, Christopher prayed to God for strength and converted the women, who became steadfast believers.
Both women were martyred. By tradition, Aquilina was executed by being hung from her hair with stones tied to her feet, while Callinika, after insulting the pagan idols, was impaled horizontally on a spit with stones hung from her hands and feet. This conversion episode is preserved in the Eastern Martyrdom but is absent from some Orthodox accounts, which do not mention the two women.
Martyrdom
Christopher is said to have endured extraordinary tortures, all of which he survived by divine protection. Tradition relates that he was thrown into water with a stone around his neck, but the stone shattered; a heated bronze cape, or an iron stool heated over fire, was placed upon him, yet he remained unharmed; and archers were ordered to shoot him, but the arrows missed their mark.
One tradition adds that an arrow turned back suddenly and pierced the emperor's eye, blinding it. After his beheading, the saint's severed head is said to have told the emperor to place some of the martyr's blood upon his wounded eye; when he did so, his sight was restored and he converted to Christianity. Christopher was ultimately martyred by beheading. By tradition, his final prayer asked that his relics be given power to drive away demons and to ward off agricultural calamities such as hail, failed grape harvests, and drought.
Relics & Shrines
A gold-plated reliquary said to hold the skull of Saint Christopher is preserved at Saint Justine's Church (the Museum of Sacred Art) on the island of Rab, Croatia. According to tradition, the public display of these relics in 1075 ended a siege of the city by Italo-Norman forces.
The Cathedral of St. James in Šibenik is reported to possess what is described as the incorrupt leg of the saint, said to have been transferred from Constantinople in 1484.
Historical Context and Cult
The legendary accounts place Christopher's martyrdom during the reign of Decius (249–251), though some sources instead name Diocletian (284–305) or Maximinus Daza (308–313). The earliest evidence for his cult comes from a martyrium near Chalcedon, consecrated between May 450 and September 452.
Modern scholarship finds no evidence for the historicity of Saint Christopher, regarding the surviving narratives as legendary developments around an early and widely venerated cult.
