The patrons of Lentini are the martyrs Alphius, Philadelphus and Cyrinus, three brothers killed here in 253 during the persecutions; their feast is 10 May. The co-patroness is Maria Santissima del Castello, whose 12th-century Byzantine icon stands in the left apse of the mother church, the former cathedral of Santa Maria la Cava e Sant'Alfio, built in 1693. Inside are also the 19th-century silver float of Saint Alphius and the three early Christian arcosolia, the tombs of the martyrs, in the right-hand nave.
On 2 September the translation of the relics is remembered, and the city relives in high summer the days of the May feast: in 1517 the relics came back to Lentini from the monastery of Fragalà, in the Messina area. On the site of the martyrdom stands the sanctuary of the Holy Martyrs, the church of the Fountain, rebuilt in 1805 over a well into which, legend says, the tongue of Saint Alphius was thrown.
