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Today, 4 November, is the feast of ... * Vitalis and Agricola, martyrs (?) - a vision revealed to Eusebius, bishop of Bologna, that these two martyrs were buried in a Jewish cemetery; they were unearthed and translated; one of the witnesses to the translation was Ambrose of Milan, who mentioned the two in a sermon on virginity - Gregory of Tours complained that no passio of these martyrs existed; but later two 'came to light', supposedly written by Ambrose * Pierius (c. 310) - head of catechetical school of Alexandria, he was known as the 'younger Origen'; he survived the Diocletian persecution and died in Rome * John Zedazneli and companions (c. 580) - John led a band of 13 Syrian monks into the Caucasus, and were among the most effective evangelizers of the region - in Georgia, there is a common feast under the name of the 'Fathers of the Iberian Church', and each of the 13 has his own separate feast * Clarus, martyr (eighth century?) - an Englishman, he went to Normandy and lived as a hermit near Rouen; there, a noble woman he had repulsed sent two men to kill him, and so they did * Joannicius (846) - after a dissolute youth, he learned to live the monastic life, then lived as a hermit; defended orthodoxy from emperor Leo V and other iconoclasts after first having been one of their allies * Emeric (1031) - only son of St Stephen, king of Hungary, born in 1007; killed while hunting, many miracles were wrought at his tomb in the church of Szekesfehervar * Frances d'Amboise, widow (1485) - a noble, she founded a convent at Nantes for Poor Clares, and worked for the canonization of Vincent Ferrer before entering the Carmelite nunnery at Vannes (that she helped found) * Carlo Borromeo, archbishop of Milan and cardinal (1584) - leading Counter-Reformation figure; his reforms of local clergy included the insistance that all clergy should be clean-shaven: this drew much indignation and surprise, as many considered a man with a shaved face to be decadent * * * * * * * * * * * * George Ferzoco %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%