Today, November 6, is the feast of:
Felix of Toniza (?) is recorded under today in the (ps-)HM. Florus of Lyon, followed by Ado and Usuard, identified him as the Felix who, according to St. Augustine of Hippo, died in prison before he could be executed. As Toniza, now El Kala in northern Algeria, was close to Hippo Regius, that identification, though far from certain, is at least possible.
Mennas/Menas (d. c300) The Egyptian Mennas was perhaps a Roman soldier; it is certain that he was martyred at about the time of Diocletian's persecution. His shrine at Bumma (near Alexandria) was a major pilgrimage centre until the Arab conquest of Egypt.
Paul the Confessor/-of Constantinople (d. 352?). A native of Thessaloniki, Paul was intermittently metropolitan of Constantinople from the later 330s to his final removal from office probably in 351. An upholder of Nicene orthodoxy, during virtually all of this time he had to contend with disfavor by the Arian-leaning emperor Constantius II (r. 337-361), who replaced him in 337 or 338 with the elderly Eusebius of Nicomedia (the prelate who had baptized Constantine the Great). Re-elected after Eusebius' death in 340, Paul was removed in 342 following an outburst of confessional and civil strife that caused the death of Constantius' general Hermogenes.
Replaced by the overtly Arian Macedonius I, Paul went into exile, garnered support from St. Athanasius of Alexandria and other pro-Nicene bishops, and, like Athanasius, was restored to his see in 346 when Constantius (not yet sole emperor) bowed to pressure from his Western co-ruler Constans I. Accused of involvement in Magnentius' usurpation after the assassination of Constans in 350, he was removed again after Magnentius' defeat at the battle of Mursa in September 351 and was sent into exile where he was soon strangled. Paul's replacement was again Macedonius; anti-Arian propaganda blamed Arians for his murder. In 381 the emperor Theodosius the Great translated Paul's relics to Constantinople. A cult making him Constantinople's answer to St. Athanasius of Alexandria as a champion of orthodoxy was already in place in the fifth century.
In the numeration of the bishops of Constantinople Paul is Paul I. He has at least two premetaphrastic Bioi (BHG 1472 and 1472a); the former is in Photius' Bibliotheca (cod. 257). Their tenth-century expansion by Symeon Metaphrastes is BHG 1473.
Paul's martyrdom as depicted in a November calendar scene in the frescoes (betw. 133-1350) of the narthex of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć: http://tinyurl.com/32c84k4
Illtud/Illtyd/Illtut (fl. 5th or 6th century) is a major saint of Wales. The seventh-century vita of Samson (Illtud's disciple) tells that Illtud was himself a disciple of Germanus of Auxerre. Illtud became head of the monastic school at Caerworgan (later, Llanilltud Fawr) in Glamorganshire, winning a reputation for learning and wisdom. He is first heard from in Samson’s Vita and in the Mirabilia section of the earlier ninth-century Historia Brittonum. His own Vita dates from c1140 and is quite unreliable. It tells that Illtud's father was a Briton who moved to Brittany. When he grew up, Illtud set out to visit his cousin King Arthur, married, and became a good knight. But after a hunting accident, he became a monk. It also avers that he sailed back to Brittany with grain ships to relieve a famine. An English-language translation of it is here: http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/illtud.html . One Welsh tradition says that Illtud was one of the three knights who guarded the Holy Grail and attempts have been made to identify him with the Galahad of Arthurian legends.
Efflam/Inflannan (d. c512 OR c700) Legend tells that Efflam was an Irish noble who fled his home to escape an arranged marriage. He settled in Brittany as a hermit in 480 (?)and ended up as the abbot-founder of the monastery of Plestan in Brittany. The site of his hermitage developed into the town of St-Efflam. He is depicted in art protecting King Arthur by fighting a dragon.
Melanius/Mélaine (French)/Mellion of Rennes (d. c530) Melaine was born at Placet, a Breton who became a monk and was drafted as the successor of St Armand as bishop of Rennes. He is recorded as a participant in the synod of Orléans in 511. Together with bishops St. Licinius of Tours and Eustochius of Angers he signed, in about 519-520, a letter reproaching two Breton priests for undertaking itinerant missions with portable altars in which they were assisted at liturgies by women. Melanius became a friend of King Clovis, and according to tradition succeeded almost completely in converting the population of the rural parts of his diocese to Christianity - a rare feat in the sixth century. A successor is first recorded from 549. The (ps-)HM gives today as the commemoration of his laying to rest. His cult rapidly became very popular in Brittany.
Melanius' cult is already attested by St. Gregory of Tours in the later sixth century. He is the subject of several legendary Vitae, none apparently earlier than the ninth century; these make him a hermit before his elevation to the episcopate and attribute healing miracles to him. He was known for humility and constant prayer; the author of his vita tells that he worked lots of miracles, being invoked to help in times of drought. From at least the later Middle Ages onward Melanius has also had a feast on January 6 (? commemorating his consecration as bishop); that is where he was in the RM prior to its revision of 2001. (see Jan 6)
Leonard of Noblac (d. 6th century, supposedly) was one of the most popular saints of the late Middle Ages. He is first heard from in the early years of the eleventh century. A little before 1028, St. Fulbert of Chartres received through an intermediary a request from the bishop of Limoges to write a Vita of Leonard; very shortly after that, Ademar of Chabannes (not yet notorious for his historical falsifications) wrote in his Historiae that in 1017 Leonard, a confessor in the Limousin, had become popular for his miracles. By a little after 1030, Leonard had a legendary Vita (not by Fulbert) that made him a Frankish noble who was both a close friend of Clovis and converted to Christianity by St. Remigius, becoming his disciple. He entered the monastery of Micy and refused efforts to make him a bishop. Instead, he retreated to a hermitage in the forest. There he encountered Queen Clotilde, in a state of some distress - she had been hunting but went into labor. Leonard provide help and prayers, the queen was safely delivered, and the grateful king gave Leonard as much land as he could ride around on his donkey in one night. This was the beginning of the monastery of Noblac. Clovis was said to have given Leonard the power, which he used liberally, to obtain from him the release of any prisoners Leonard visited and later ones reported that their chains fell off when they invoked the saint’s name. This trait made Leonard a natural recourse for ordinary people who had fallen afoul of the justice of local lords; before the century was out, it would also make him popular with pilgrims and with Crusaders. He is invoked by farmers, women in labor and also by prisoners.
Medievally, Leonard's cult in Italy extended (as it still does) from the Dolomites to the Ionian, in Bavaria and the Alpine regions, and across the Strait of Messina to Sicily. Perhaps his best known monument here is the former monastery of San Leonardo di Lama Volara outside of Manfredonia in northern Apulia. From the early twelfth century until 1250 it was run by Augustinian Canons. In 1261 it was given to the Teutonic Knights.
There is a carving of him at the bottom of http://www.garganonline.net/S.Leo2.html and a statue on the Leonhardikirche in Bad Sankt Leonhard im Lavanttal (Land Kärnten) in Austria: http://tinyurl.com/23swl3 , and a mosaic (later twelfth- or early thirteenth-century) in the Cappella Palatina at Palermo: http://tinyurl.com/2xc8x3
Severus of Barcelona (d. 633) was bishop of Barcelona at a bad time - when Arians were ruling Spain. Severus was martyred by having nails hammered into his head.
martyrs of Antioch (d. 637) A group of ten or more, killed when Muslims captured the city.
Winnoc (d. 716 or 717) is the Breton saint of the former priory bearing his name at today's Wormhout (Nord) in French Flanders. His earliest Vita has him enter religion at Sithiu / Saint-Omer; seemingly written there before 820, it associates him with Sts. Omer and Bertinus and has him found, with that house's permission, a cell at Wormhout that evolved in his lifetime into the aforementioned priory. Miracles are said to have been reported at his tomb. Winnoc's feast is first recorded from the eighth century and has been celebrated on various days (not altogether surprisingly, as numerous translations of his relics are reported from the Middle Ages). The RM took today as his feast day from Propers of the dioceses of Arras and Lille.
Erlfrid (d. 850) was count of Calw and probably the founder of the great monastery of Hirsau in the Black Forest. He himself lived as a simple monk in the community. Hirsau fell into decline soon after Erlfrid's death and was only re-founded in 1059.
Demetrianos/Demetrian, bishop of Khytri (d. 915) was born in c830 on Cyprus, the son of a priest. His wife died after only three months of marriage and he then served 40 years as a monk, then was elected bishop of Khytri (Chytri/Ketheria) on Cyprus, a post he did not want and that he tried to avoid by hiding in a cave but his 'friend' who had previously helped him told the authorities where they could find the fugitive. He was bishop from c890 to 915. Late in his episcopate, the Saracens ravaged Cyprus and enslaved many of its people. Demetrianos is supposed to have followed the raiders, who were so impressed by his age and selflessness that they let the captives free. He attracted widespread veneration, and several places on the island are named after him.
Stephen of Apt (d. 1046) This twenty-seventh (traditional numeration) bishop of today's Apt (Vaucluse) has a closely contemporary Vita. Born at Agde (Hérault), he studied at a Benedictine house in that city but seems to have become a secular priest. He was elevated to the episcopate in 1010 and is documented from 1019 to 1044 at consecrations of churches from Marseille to Catalunya and in other connections. Stephan's is cult is recorded from Arles in the twelfth century; curiously, it is not attested from Apt prior to the latter diocese's Breviary of 1532.
Barlaam of Khutyn (d. 1193) was a wealthy citizen of Novgorod. After his parents died, he gave his inheritance to the poor and became a hermit at Khityn, on the banks of the Volga. Due to the constant stream of admirers, he founded the monastery of the Transfiguration, organizing his disciples into a monastic community. Barlaam’s grave became an important pilgrimage site.
Leonard of Reresby (13th century) A popular saint with no official standing, a Yorkshire legend tells that Leonard was a crusader, taken prisoner by the Muslims, and then miraculously transported back to England - complete with his chains, where he died immediately after arrival.
Christina Bruzo of Stommeln (blessed) (d. 1312) was born in 1242, a peasant from the area of Cologne. Christina was a Beguine at Cologne, and then housekeeper for a parish priest in Stommeln. Starting at the age of 11 Christina had a very large number of mystical experiences; harassment by demons (e.g. Satan, disguised as St Bartholomew, tried to get her to kill herself), visions. About 1258 she received the stigmata on her hands, feet, forehead, and side. She did her best to hide the marks, a difficult task since they bled every Easter. Her biographer, Peter of Dacia, witnessed many incidents (such as her stigmata, and showers of filth that poured down 'from nowhere' on her and her visitors). After Peter left town, Christina still corresponded with him through the parish priest, who sometimes added to her dictation comments of his own; this priest died in 1277, and was succeeded by a schoolmaster, whose accounts are the most extreme of all. Christina was already venerated as a saint during her lifetime, and local veneration continued for 600 years until her cult was finally approved in 1908.
Jeanne Marie de Maille, widow (1414) lived in a chaste marriage for 16 years; her husband then went to war and was captured, so she sold everything to raise the ransom but he escaped with the help of a miracle of the Virgin. Eventually, she became completely destitute, sleeping with pigs and in dog-kennels. However, at age 57 she started to live in a tiny room of a church in Tours, where she worked many conversions and miracles.
Nuno Álvares Pereira (d. 1431). The Portuguese national hero Nuno, who at the age of twenty-three was already constable of the realm, had an outstanding military career. In 1423, after the death of his wife, he entered religion at the Carmelite house he had founded at Lisbon and lived there as a penitent until his death. Nuno was beatified in 1918 and canonized in 2009.
Margaret of Lorraine (blessed) (d. 1521) was born in 1463, the daughter of Duke Frederick of Lorraine. In 1488 she married Rene, duke of Alencon, but was widowed in 1492. After that, Margaret devoted herself to raising their three children and to works of charity. When the children had grown up, influenced by Francis of Paola, she joined the Poor Clares and founded a convent at Argentan.
Happy reading,
Terri Morgan
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“The nice thing about studying history is that you can always find people who are a lot weirder than you are.” – Delia Sherman