Victricius of Rouen

Stained glass of Victricus in a church in Rouen.

Victricius , also Victrice (* approx. 340; † before 409, probably 407) was a Roman and bishop of Rouen as well as the author of the Christian book "On the praise of the saints" and saints.

Life

Born around 340, Victricius made a career in the Roman army until he chose Christianity between 360 and 363 and left military service; He was sentenced to a severe corporal punishment, allegedly including death.

In the following years Victricius was active in missionary work, since 380/386 he was bishop in Rouen. Shortly after 386 Victricius met in Vienne the later canonized Martin von Tours (* approx. 316; † 397) and the ascetic and monk Paulinus von Nola (* before 355; † 431), with whom he was in correspondence (397 / 398 and 403/404).

Victricius met the accusation that he would cling to the Christian heresy of Apollinarism with a trip to Rome to see the Roman bishop (403/04). The Bishop of Rouen died at an unknown date.

Only one literary work by Victricius of Rouen has survived. De laude sanctorum ("On the praise of the saints") deals with the theological role of relics in the veneration of saints . Victricius himself was venerated as a saint in the following years, his grave was at his bishopric in Rouen. The veneration of saints around the bishop first became apparent in the 9th century in the dioceses of Amiens , Arras , Rouen and Soissons . The festival day is August 7th .

literature

• Paulinus of Nola, Epistulae. Letters . Latin-German, transl. v. Matthias Skeb, 3 Tlbde., Freiburg-Basel-Vienna 1998, pp. 88f, 840-853
• Victricius of Rouen, De laude sanctorum (= CCSL 64) , ed. by R. Demenlenaere, Turnhout 1985
• Kirsten Groß-Albenhausen:  Victricius of Rouen. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 12, Bautz, Herzberg 1997, ISBN 3-88309-068-9 , Sp. 1359-1362.
• Gillian Clark, "Victricius of Rouen: Praising the Saints (Introduction and annotated translation)," Journal of Early Christian Studies , 7 (1999), 365-399; = in Eadem, Body and Gender, Soul and Reason in Late Antiquit y (Farnham; Burlington, VT, Ashgate, 2011) (Variorum collected studies series, CS978), art. XII.
• Gillian Clark, "Translating relics: Victricius of Rouen and fourth-century debate," Early Medieval Europe , 10 (2001), 161-176; in Eadem, Body and Gender, Soul and Reason in Late Antiquity (Farnham; Burlington, VT, Ashgate, 2011) (Variorum collected studies series, CS978), art. XIII.

abbreviation

• CCSL = Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina