Alexius (saint)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Saint Alexius | |
|---|---|
| The Man of God | |
| Born | unknown, Rome |
| Died | 5th Century, Rome |
| Venerated in | Eastern Orthodox Church, Roman Catholic Church |
| Feast | July 17 in West; 17 March in East |
| Attributes | holding a ladder; man lying beneath a staircase |
| Patronage | Alexians; beggars; belt makers; nurses; pilgrims; travellers |
 Saints Portal |
|
The hagiography of Saint Alexius (Italian: Sant'Alessio; Spanish: San Alejo) sets his life of abnegation in the early 5th century. In the earliest Syriac legend, the Saint, a "Man of God" of Edessa, later named as Alexius, who lived in Edessa during the episcopate of Bishop Rabula (412-435), was a native of Rome. His cult developed in Syria and spread through the Eastern Empire by the 9th century. Only from the end of the 10th century did his name begin to appear in any liturgical books in the West.
The Greek version of his legend made Alexius the only son of Euphemianus, a wealthy Christian Roman of the senatorial class. Alexius fled his arranged marriage to follow his holy vocation. Disguised as a beggar, he lived near Edessa in Syria, accepting alms even from his own household slaves, who had been sent to look for him but did not recognize him, until a miraculous vision of the Virgin Mary singled him out as a "Man of God." Fleeing the resultant notoriety, he returned to Rome, so changed that his parents did not recognize him, but as good Christians took him in and sheltered him for seventeen years, which he spent in a dark cubbyhole beneath the stairs, praying and teaching catechism to children. After his death, his family found writings on his body which told them who he was and how he had lived his life of penance from the day of his wedding, for the love of God.
Since before the eighth century, there was on the Aventine in Rome a church that was dedicated to St Boniface. In 972 Pope Benedict VII transferred this almost abandoned church to the exiled Greek metropolitan, Sergius of Damascus. The latter erected beside the church a monastery for Greek and Latin monks, soon made famous for the austere life of its inmates. To the name of St Boniface was now added that of St Alexius as titular saint of the church and monastery. It is evidently Sergius and his monks who brought to Rome the veneration of St Alexius. The Eastern saint, according to his legend a native of Rome, was soon very popular with the folk of that city, and this church, being associated with the legend, was considered to be built on the site of the home that Alexius returned to from Edessa.
Alexius is mentioned in the Roman Martyrology under 17 July in the following terms: "At Rome, in a church on the Aventine Hill, a man of God is celebrated under the name of Alexius, who, as reported by tradition, abandoned his wealthy home, for the sake of becoming poor and to beg for alms unrecognized." His feast has, however, been removed from the General Roman Calendar, which lists the saints to be celebrated at Mass and in the Liturgy of the Hours of the Roman Rite. The reason given was the legendary character of the written Life of the Saint (Calendarium Romanum, Vatican Polyglot Press, 1969, page 130). The Catholic Encyclopedia remarks: "Perhaps the only basis for the story is the fact that a certain pious ascetic at Edessa lived the life of a beggar and was later venerated as a saint."
The Eastern Orthodox Church venerates Alexius on 17 March. Numerous Byzantine and Russian personalities have borne his name; see Alexius.
Stefano Landi wrote an opera about him (1631). Camilla De Rossi wrote an oratorio about him (1710).
[edit] External links
- Saint Alexius in the Catholic Encyclopedia
- Saint Alexius in Catholic Forum
- Brief vita, based on Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation of Butler’s Lives of the Saints,
