St. Lazarus
The brother of Martha and Mary whom Jesus raised from the dead at Bethany, after which the chief priests wanted him killed too.
Canonized
St. Lazarus of Bethany (Catholic Encyclopedia)
- This record carries the Gospel scenes and nothing after them, because that is where the source stops. The encyclopedia's account of him is four sentences long: he was the brother of Martha and Mary of Bethany, Jesus raised him from the dead at his sisters' request, he was at the supper Simon the Leper gave for Jesus, and many people believed because of him, which is why the chief priests wanted him dead too. Then it says: 'The Gospels tell us no more of Lazarus'.
- Two different stories are told about the rest of his life, and this record asserts neither. One says he and his sisters were put out to sea in a boat with no sails, oars or rudder, landed in Provence, and that he became the first bishop of Marseilles and died a martyr there. The other, kept by the Greek Church, says his body was taken to Constantinople. The one document that tells the Provence story is also the document that rejects it: the encyclopedia says that tradition 'has no solid foundation', because nothing links him to Provence before the eleventh century, and the bishop named on the old tomb at Marseilles was almost certainly a different Lazarus, the bishop of Aix. If you have met either story elsewhere, that is why neither is here.
- Two different men called Lazarus appear in the New Testament, and only one of them is this saint. The other is the beggar at the rich man's gate in Luke 16 — and on the encyclopedia's own reading he is not a real person at all, but a character in a parable Jesus told. The two are easy to confuse because the encyclopedia files them under one heading. Both of its articles are held here for that reason.
- Catholic Encyclopedia (1907-1913), Walter Drum, 'Lazarus' — the source of the two-person disambiguation and of the four Gospel facts above. Written before the calendar was reformed in 1969, so it is not the source for his feast day. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09096a.htm
- Catholic Encyclopedia (1907-1913), 'St. Lazarus of Bethany' — the article about the saint himself, and the source both of the later-life traditions and of the rejection of the Provence one. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09097a.htm
- Universal Calendar, 29 July — 'St Martha, Mary and Lazarus' (memorial), from the Liturgy Office of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales. https://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/Calendar/Universal/JulUC.shtml
- The decree that made 29 July the memorial of Saints Martha, Mary and Lazarus, from the Congregation for Divine Worship, 26 January 2021. It gives him one line: 'Lazarus promptly emerged from the tomb at the command of the One who humiliated death.' Martha's record here says more about what changed. https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2021/02/02/210202c.html
- No patronage is recorded for him. Both documents held for him were searched for 'patron' in August 2026, and the word is not in either. If you are expecting the leper hospitals or the Order of St Lazarus, they are not here — and the article itself says the leprosy belongs to the man in the parable rather than to this Lazarus, and is legendary even there.