medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (7. September) is the feast day of:
Regina (2d century?) A very legendary saint, Regina was raised as a
Christian but when her father discovered her religious tastes he
threw her out of the house. She then became a shepherdess but was
denounced to the Roman prefect as a Christian after she refused to
marry. She was martyred at Autun.
Sozon (?) Legend tells of the young Cilician Sozon who was out
herding his sheep when he had a dream of Christ, who told him to go
disrupt the religious festival in a nearby town and destroy the cult
statue in the temple. He was arrested, tortured, and burned to death.
Grimonia (4th cent.) Yet another very legendary saint, Grimonia
(according to French legend) was the daughter of an Irish king. She
converted to Christianity and consecrated herself to God. So G.
refused to marry, upon which her dad imprisoned her. She escaped and
went to Gaul, where she lived as a hermit in Picardy. Her father's
agents tracked her down, though, and when she refused to return and
marry they beheaded her.
Anastasius the Fuller (d. c. 304) Anastasius lived in Split
(Dalmatia), where he worked as a fuller. During Diocletian's
persecution he was thrown into the sea with a rock tied to his neck.
Clodoald (Cloud) (d. 560) Clodoald was a Merovingian prince who
managed to avoid the murderous tendencies of his kinsmen by being
sent to Provence at a young age. He became a hermit and made no
effort to claim the throne when he reached his majority. His
hermitage at Nogent eventually came to be known as St. Cloud.
A cluster of modern saints: the martyrs of Kosice (d. 1619) Mark
Korosy was a Croatian priest sent to Kosice (modern Slovakia) to
administer monastic property; Stephen Pongracz was a Transylvanian
Jesuit who served at Kosice as a military chaplain; Melchior
Grodziecky was a Polish chaplain in the same town. The problem was
that the town was adamantly Calvinist. When the Calvinist prince of
Transylvania rebelled against the emperor in 1619, the townspeople
betrayed the garrison and the town council called for the death of
the three priests. They were tortured in an attempt to get them to
see the Protestant light. Then Mark and Stephen got off easy (just
beheaded), but Melchior was castrated, roasted upside-down, and then
thrown 3/4 dead into a ditch where he survived for 20 hours. The
three were canonized in 1995.
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