ABBONDIO, Saint. - Fourth bishop of Como, patron of the diocese. He is particularly known for the mission he carried out at Constantinople in 450, as legate of Leo the Great to the emperor Marcian, Theodosius II having died in the meantime, and to the patriarch Anatolius. A., together with Eutherius (Asterius, according to the editors' discretion), bishop of Capua, and the priests Basil of Naples and Senator of Milan, was to treat of the profession of the Catholic faith of the Constantinopolitan patriarch Anatolius, formerly apocrisiary of the Alexandrian patriarch Dioscorus, successor of the deposed Flavian, and, in the event of Anatolius' obstinacy, of the convocation of a general council to be held in Italy (cf. the letters of Leo to Theodosius II and to Pulcheria of 16 July 450, in Jaffé-Wattenbach, 452-53). The mission of A. and his companions succeeded: on 21 October of the same year Anatolius convoked a synod that was held in the baptistery of St. Sophia, which all the bishops of the patriarchate had to attend, anathematized the doctrines of Nestorius and Eutyches and subscribed to the Tome of Leo to Flavian.
On their return to Italy, A. and Senator brought to Milan a letter with which Leo probably asked the bishops to manifest their faith with regard to the doctrines of Nestorius and Eutyches. The letter was read and subscribed by the suffragans of Milan, gathered in synod by the archbishop Eusebius (first half of 451); A. also subscribed in the name of the bishop of Chur. He died on 2 April of a year that oscillates between 462 and 489; the Bollandists hold that it is 468. He was buried in the basilica of the apostles Peter and Paul, which was later called by his name, where a fragment of the sepulchral slab with the inscription is still preserved (CIL, V, II, n. 5402). Cardinal Tolomeo Gallio, on 8 January 1587, had the body of A. transferred to the cathedral. His feast is celebrated on 2 April.
The Vita Abundi, published by Mombrizio (Sanctuarium, Milan 1478), reproduced by the Bollandists, is late (7th-10th, 13th century?) and contains scanty and not always reliable biographical data; its author, however, knew the acts of the Constantinopolitan synod of 450, in which A. took part. Of this synod, known hitherto only from the Vita Abundi, P. Mouterde has rediscovered in a Syriac manuscript of the Vatican library and published an important fragment of its acts (Fragments d'actes d'un synode tenu à Constantinople en 450, in Mélanges de l'Université de Saint-Joseph, Beirut 1930, pp. 35-50).
Bibliography3 works
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Maiocchi, Storia dei vescovi di Como, Milan 1920, pp. 42-67; P. Mouterde, Saint Abundius de Côme et ses trois compagnons à un synode de Constantinople en 450, in Analecta Bollandiana, 48 (1930), pp. 124-29; C. Silva-Tarouca, Nuovi studi sulle antiche lettere dei Papi, Rome 1932, pp. 111-17, 141 (offprint from Gregorianum, 12, [1932], pp. 403-409, 553).
A. Pietro Frutaz