Athanasius of Naples, Saint

ATHANASIUS OF NAPLES, Saint. - Bishop of Naples from 22 Dec. 849 to 15 July 872; son of the famous Neapolitan duke Sergius and of Drosa, his wife, he was born, according to the anonymous Life (ed. G. Waitz, p. 442), in 832. Barely eighteen years old, he succeeded Bishop John, who died in 849. He led an austere private life; he attended to the literary education of his clergy; he was greatly beneficent toward the poor and the churches of his city, which he restored munificently, among them St. Januarius and the Stefania. He took part in the Roman Synod of 861. He had much to suffer at the hands of his nephew, Duke Sergius, who even attempted to make him renounce the episcopate; having withdrawn to the island of Nisida, he was freed through the intervention of Louis II. A. then lived in exile at Sorrento (867-72), where Stephen, his brother, was bishop; he interceded, however, with Adrian II that the excommunication hurled against Naples, whose people had sided with Sergius, might be lifted; but on the journey back from Rome, he fell ill at Veroli and died in the oratory of St. Quiricus near Montecassino, on 15 July 872. Buried first in that abbey, he was transported to Naples and laid in St. Januarius extra moenia, on 1 Aug. 877, by his successor Athanasius II, his nephew. In the 13th century he was then transported to the Cathedral, a translation commemorated on 5 Apr. Feast on 15 July.

A. Pietro Frutaz