Dr. John (Ellsworth) Hutchison-Hall

Eastern Orthodox Christian theologian, historian, philosopher, and cultural commentator.

            

Orthodox Saints of the Pre-Schism See of Rome

AGRICOLA (AGRICOLUS) of AVIGNON, the son of St. Magnus of Avignon (19th August) the thirty-fourth Bishop of Avignon (south-eastern France). At the age of sixteen, St. Agricola received monastic tonsure at the Abbey of Our Lady of Lérins (abbaye Notre Dame de Lérins) on one of the Lérins Islands in the Mediteranian Ocean off the Côte d’Azur in France. At Lérins St. Agricola acquired a reputation for scholarship and holiness of life. At the age of thirty, he was summoned by his father to serve as his co-adjutor, and following the repose of St. Magnus in 660, St. Agricola succeeded his father as Bishop. He governed the See of Avignon for forty years, reposing in 700 of natural causes.

ANTONINUS of PAMIERS, (Date Unknown), the patron saint of Pamiers (south-western France), Palencia (northern Spain), and Medina del Campo (north-western Spain). Not only are there no reliable details of his life extant, there are reasonable doubts to his historicity and exact identity.

CASTOR of APT, a native of Nîmes (southern France) who may have been the brother of St. Leontius of Fréjus (1st December). St. Castor was a lawyer who settled in Marseilles (southern France) following his marriage, but soon he and his wife decided to separate and enter monasteries. St. Castor was the founder of Monanque Abbey (south-eastern France), said to have been the motivation for St. John Cassian (23rd July) to write De Institutis Coenobiorum, and finally served as the fourth Bishop of Apt (south-eastern France). St. Castor reposed circa 420 of natural causes, and his relics enshrined at the Cathedral of St. Anne (Cathédrale Sainte-Anne d'Apt) in Apt.

ELPIDIUS of LYONS, the successor of St. Antiochus of Lyons (15th October) as Bishop of Lyons (east-central France) from 410 until his repose in 422. Though he appears in numerous lists of primates of the See of Lyons, there are no details of his episcopacy, nor an extant Life.

HEIU (HIEU), St. Heiu received monastic tonsure from St. Áedán of Lindisfarne (31st August), and went on the serve as Abbess of Tadcaster in Yorkshire, England. She reposed circa 657 of natural causes. Some sources aver that St. Heiu and St. Bega (6th September) are one in the same saint.

JUSTUS (JUST) of LYONS, (Also 14th October), a deacon in Vienne (south-eastern France) who was consecrated 13th Bishop of Lyons (east-central France) in 350. St. Justus was one of the participants at the Council of Aquileia of 381 which dealt with Arianism. Shortly there after, St. Justus resigned his See and, with his deacon, went to Egypt where he lived as a hermit until his repose in 390. Shortly after his repose, his body was brought back to Lyons where he was buried at what came to be the Basilica of St. Just (basilique de Saint-Just).

LOLANUS, (Fifth Century), a variety of legends regarding the life of St. Lolanus have completely obscured the historical record. While some sources profess that he was a nephew of St. Servan of Culross (1st July), others claim that he was a native of Cana in Galilee who lived in Rome for seven years before travelling to Scotland where he spent the rest of his life. Still other sources maintain that he was a bishop in Scotland.

MAXIMA, a Roman slave and friend of St. Ansanus of Siena (1st December) who was martyred during the Diocletianic Persecution (303–313).

NONNOSUS, very little is known of the life of St. Nonnosus, who does not seem to be listed in any of the ancient martyrologies, however, he is mentioned by St. Gregory the Dialogist (3rd September) in some of his writings on Italian saints. From this we learn that St. Nonnosus was a contemporary of St. Benedict of Nursia (11th July), and a prior at the Monastery of St. Sylvester (Monastero San Silvestre) on Monte Soratte north of Rome, then later a monk at Suppentonia, near Civita Castellana (east-central Italy). St. Nonnosus reposed circa 575.

VALENTINUS (VALENTINE) of STRASBOURG, (Fourth Century), the fourth Bishop of Strasbourg (north-eastern France), of whom nothing further seems to be known.

Prior to the Schism the Patriarchate of Rome was Orthodox, and fully in communion with the Orthodox Church. As Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco +1966 said “The West was Orthodox for a thousand years, and her venerable Liturgy is far older than any of her heresies”.

Details of British Saints excerpted from Orthodox Saints of the British Isles.
Details of continental saints from these sources.

In many cases there are several spelling versions of the names of saints from the British Isles. I use the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography version as the primary version with the more prevalent version in parenthesis e.g. Ceadda (Chad) of Lichfield.