A pair of 92-year-old identical twins in the US have died only hours apart.

The brothers died of heart failure last Wednesday at St. Anthony Hospital, in St. Petersburg, Florida, AP reported.

“It really is almost a poetic ending to the remarkable story of their lives,” Tom Missel, a spokesman from St. Bonaventure University, where the brothers worked, said in a statement.

The two men, who were born in Buffalo, New York, were friars in the Roman Catholic Order of Friars Minor.

Julian and Adrian Riester were born Jerome and Irving on March 27, 1919, and were the younger siblings to five sisters.

They took the names of saints upon their ordination into the church 65 years ago, having been rejected by the military because of poor eyesight.

After initially being sent on separate assignments, the brothers were reunited in 1951 at the seminary at St. Bonaventure.

In 1956 they parted ways again, serving in various churches throughout Buffalo before returning to St. Bonaventure in 1973 where they undertook carpentry work, gardening and chauffeured the university’s staff.

The brothers were virtually inseparable for the rest of their lives. At the friary they had separate rooms but a common phone line.

“It was fun to see them, just quiet, gentle souls,” Yvonne Peace, who worked at the St. Bonaventure Friary for nearly 21 years, said.