St. Stapin

Fantasy portrait of Bishop Stapinus. From the prayer book "The sad turtledove who sighs for her lover or the penitent Christian soul". Nuremberg and Sulzbach, 1806, anonymous

St. Stapin (* 7th century in En Lanet ; † 8th century in Dourgne , Latin also Stapinus ) was born in the early 7th century in a hamlet called En Lanet near Dourgne .

Career

There are no reliable historical sources on the person of Stapin. The hamlet of En Lanet cherishes the memory of the birth in a place called Les Mirgues or Les Mourgues . An undeveloped piece of land in the middle of the fields still bears the name Camp de Sant Estapi today. A well rises there that is supposed to give fertility to mothers.

Stapin decided to live as a hermit in a desert called St. Ferréol on a mountain southeast of Dourgne, on which there is now a chapel that was built shortly after the end of World War II.

Around 685 he was asked to become Bishop of Carcassonne , but the thought scared him. He was looked for in Dourgne, but he hid in the region's caves, especially in Trou Cruzel . But in the end he followed the call. On his way between Dourgne and Carcassonne, he camped in Ventenac-Cabardès , a small village in the Aude that reveres him to this day.

He left his post a few years before his death to return to the mountains of Dourgne.

According to another reading, he had to leave his bishopric in 725 when the Moors conquered Carcassonne .

The village of Dourgne celebrates its patron saint every year on August 6th, which should have been the anniversary of his death.

etymology

Bertrand de Vivies derives the name Stapin from either the Latin stare (standing upright), Espie (a stage rest ) or the Provencal verb estapiner (jumping from stone to stone).

The list of bishops of Carcassonne equates Stapin with Stephan (French Etienne ).

Adoration

He was venerated as the patron saint of gout patients in the Middle Ages and modern times in several European countries, including southern France, Belgium and Germany . His cult found its way into the Acta Sanctorum in the 17th century . Also in the 17th century there was a brotherhood of his name in Lyon , and pilgrimages to Dourgne were still taking place in the 19th century . There is a chapel dedicated to St. Stapinus from the 15th century and a statue of the saint.

The chapel of St. Stapinus can be found in Klokočka, a district of Ofen an der Jizera .

Stapin was portrayed as a bishop with his feet bandaged like those of a gout patient.

literature

• Vivies, B. de S .: Stapin évêque de Carcassonne (VIIe s.) Entre mythe et histoire - Bulletin de la Société d'études scientifiques de l'Aude (Carcassonne) 89 (1989), pp. 21-31.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ La Légende Saint Stapin , (German: Die Legende vom Saint Stapin , In: dourgne-mairie.fr (French)) (accessed July 19, 2020)
2. ↑ Entry in the Complete Lexicon of Saints, Ed. JE Stadler et al., Augsburg 1858.
3. ↑ see website of the municipality of Dourgne