Kegourus, Secundinus and Secundus, together with their mother Jerusalem, are commemorated as a family of martyrs who suffered at Veria (Berea) in Macedonia. They are kept in the Orthodox calendar on September 4. The earliest synaxarion notices preserve little more than their names, their kinship, and the place of their suffering, so the detailed account of their lives belongs chiefly to the local tradition of Veria.
By that tradition, Jerusalem came from Alexandria in Egypt and was raised by pious parents in the third century. Though she had wished for the monastic life, she married and bore three sons. After her husband's death she set out with them toward Rome, proclaiming Christ along the way, and finally settled at Veria in Macedonia, where the tradition relates that she lived in asceticism and helped to plant monastic life in the region.
Her preaching is said to have drawn many of the pagans to Christ, and on this account she was denounced to Kindianus, the governor (duke) of Thessalonica, who came to Veria to interrogate her. When she confessed Christ openly, her three sons were put to death, each in a distinct manner, and Jerusalem herself was beheaded. The sources of the Veria tradition agree on these forms of execution — being dragged behind horses, beaten to death, and made to wear a red-hot helmet or set upon a burning grate — but differ as to which son suffered which torment.
