medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (28. June) is the feast day of:
1) Irenaeus of Lyon (d. ca. 202). According to Gregory of Tours, I. was sent by St. Polycarp to Lyon, where he succeeded the martyred protobishop St. Photinus (Pothinus). We know from his own writings that he was a Greek of Asia Minor; if the connection with Polycarp is accurately reported, he will have come from Smyrna. I. was already in Lyon by 177 or 178, when the church there sent him to Rome with an anti-Montanist tract. It was on his return that I. succeeded Photinus, who had been killed in the persecution of Marcus Aurelius.
Little is known about I. as bishop. According to Gregory, through I.'s preaching Lyon became an entirely Christian city. Eusebius provides a list of I.'s writings, most of which have perished. His chief work, a defence of apostolic tradition against other Christian viewpoints, principally Gnosticism, is generally known by the name of the Latin translation in which it survives entire (_Adversus haereses_). St. Jerome considered I. a martyr. Though this last datum is now widely questioned, it was routinely accepted in the Middle Ages.
In Gregory's time I. reposed at Lyon in a church of St. John. The latter's originally Carolingian successor was dedicated to I. Though Lyon's present église St-Irénée is of the nineteenth century, it preserves at least one structural fragment from the late antique church and the apse of its crypt is a rebuilding from 1635 of the Carolingian one. I.'s tomb there was destroyed in 1562. Here's a view of the present crypt (restored in 1863):
http://www.lyon-st-irenee.org/images/gd_crypte_stirenee.jpg
An illustrated, French-language history of the building is here:
http://qse.free.fr/spip.php?article25
One of that page's expandable views shows part of a fifth-century vault:
http://qse.free.fr/IMG/jpg/saint_irenee_nord2.jpg
A closer view:
http://tinyurl.com/5jy6sy
And here's a view of I.'s originally later medieval church at Châtillon-la-Palud (Ain):
http://tinyurl.com/ypu9ho
2) Plutarch, Serenus, Heraclides, Hero(n), another Serenus, Herais, Potamiena, and Marcella (d. 202 or 203). We know about these disciples of Origen and martyrs of Alexandria under Septimius Severus from the accounts of their suffering in Eusebius' _Historia Ecclesiastica_. Palladius (_Historia Lausiaca_, 3) reports a tradition that made Potamiena a martyr under Maximian. Their joint feast on this day is at least as old as the very late seventh- or early eighth-century (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology.
3) Paul I, pope (d. 767). A Roman from a wealthy family, P. was orphaned early and was brought up in the Lateran. Pope St. Zachary ordained him deacon. In 757 P. succeeded his older brother Stephen II (III) as pope. He continued S.'s policy of relying on the goodwill of Pepin the Short (Pepin III) to protect the papal territories from Lombard aggression and he repeatedly admonished the iconoclast emperor Constantine V to restore the icons. Following the example of pope St. Gregory the Great, first Stephen and then P. converted their boyhood home into a monastery dedicated to Sts. Stephen and Sylvester. Its church, rebuilt in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, is today's San Silvestro in Capite. Here's a view of its belltower:
http://tinyurl.com/2nrhpv
4) Argimirus of Córdoba (d. 856). The Cordoban martyr A. (formerly spelled by the RM as Argymirus; in Spanish, often Argemiro) was a Christian from a prominent family of Cabra who had occupied a responsible government post under the emir Muhammad I. He had retired and had been living in a convent for some years when he was denounced by Muslim former co-workers as having insulted the Prophet. A. was given an opportunity to convert to Islam; when he declined to apostasize he was convicted, tortured, and executed by decapitation. His corpse was exposed to the public for many days, after which he was buried in Córdoba's church dedicated to its early martyr St. Acisclus.
5) Heimerad (d. 1019). According to his later eleventh-century Vita by Ekkebert of Hersfeld (BHL 3770), H. (also Heimrad, Haimo) was born at today's Meßkirch in Baden. After ordination to the priesthood he undertook pilgrimages in Germany, Italy, and Palestine. In about 1015 he entered the monastery of Hersfeld but then declined to make his profession. As he was waiting at monastery gate for permission to leave he complained that he had not been treated with the respect due his noble birth. This was promptly reported to the abbot, who had H. whipped before he was allowed to depart. After further wandering he became custodian of a chapel dedicated to St. Michael on the Hasunger Berg in today's Zierenberg (Kr. Kassel) in Hessen. After his death there a few years later miracles ensued and a cult arose. In 1021 the bishop of Mainz had a chapel built over H.'s grave.
The monastery of Hasungen founded on the Hasunger Berg in the later eleventh century adopted H. as its saint. His grave had a brief popularity as a pilgrimage destination. Today is H.'s day of commemoration in the RM. In the dioceses of Fulda and of Freiburg im Breisggau he is celebrated liturgically on 27. June.
Kloster Hasungen was suppressed in the Reformation. The tower of its church was shattered by lightning in 1876 but remained standing until the winter of 1896/97. This German-language page has expandable images of a sketch from 1631 for a reconstruction of the abbey site and of a depiction of the tower in 1820:
http://tinyurl.com/4j89e6
A view of the tower from 1850 (enlargeable via mouseover):
http://tinyurl.com/49mqla
Two pages of expandable views of the tower in various states of decay/rubble begin here:
http://tinyurl.com/6y26gt
6) Ekkehard of Huysburg (d. 1084). E. was a cathedral canon of Halberstadt who became the spiritual director of a female recluse in the nearby Huy mountains. They attracted disciples and in 1080 E. founded the double convent of Huysburg in today's Sachsen-Anhalt, becoming its first abbot. He was buried in the abbey church. Herewith a view of his grave (next to that of a bishop who died in 2004):
http://tinyurl.com/5ovkgs
Exterior views of the restored, originally early eleventh-century church (1121; west towers from 1487) of what since 2004 has been a priory of St. Matthias Abbey in Trier:
http://tinyurl.com/6h5hsj
http://bistum-magdeburg.de/img/kirchen/tk_huy.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/6nmo3e
A plan (late nineteenth-century):
http://tinyurl.com/5kn2td
E. was accorded an Elevatio in 1121. He has yet to grace the pages of the RM.
Best,
John Dillon
(Irenaeus of Lyon and Paul I lightly revised from last year's post)
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