| Saint Romanus of Condat | |
|---|---|
| Born | c. 390 Upper Bugey |
| Died | c. 460 |
| Honored in | Roman Catholic Church |
| Feast | 28 February |
| Patronage | drowning victims, insanity, mental illness, mentally ill people |
Saint Romanus of Condat (c. 390 – c. 463) is a saint of the fifth century. At the age of thirty five he decided to live as a hermit in the area of Condat. His younger brother Lupicinus followed him there. They became leaders of a community of monks that included Saint Eugendus.
Romanus and Lupicinus founded several monasteries. These included Condat Abbey, which was the nucleus of the later town of Saint-Claude, Jura), Lauconne (later Saint-Lupicin, as Lupicinus was buried there), La Balme (Beaume) (later Saint-Romain-de-Roche), where Romanus was buried, and Romainmôtier (Romanum monasterium) in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland.
Romanus was ordained a priest by St. Hilary of Arles in 444.
Two lives of him are in existence: one by Gregory of Tours in the Liber vitae patrum (Mon. Germ. Hist.: Script. Merov., I, 663), and an anonymous Vita Sanctorum Romani, Lupicini, Eugendi [ibid., III, 131 sqq.; cf. Benoît, "Histoire de St-Claude", I (Paris, 1890); Besson, "Recherches sur les origines des évêchés de Genève, Lausanne, et Sion" (Fribourg, 1906), 210 sqq.].