KILLIAN (KILLENA, CHILIAN), Saint, Martyr. — Bishop and patron of the diocese of Würzburg, d. c. 689. Of noble Irish-Scottish family, according to legend, already a bishop he went with eleven companions, among whom were the priest Columban and the deacon Totnan, to Würzburg on the Main and into eastern Franconia.
As a result of his preaching, approved by Pope John V, Duke Gozbert was baptized with his tribe and, by order of K., was separated from his sister-in-law Gailana. She had the three missionaries secretly assassinated, and had them buried with the sacred furnishings and the Gospel, still preserved: thus the *Passio*, written shortly before 800, but based on an older narrative. In 752 Bishop Burchard of Würzburg translated the relics of the holy martyrs. In the house of the Neumünster at Würzburg their tomb is venerated, a small part of the relics (the rest are in the Cathedral) and the famous busts of the three saints by Tilman Riemenschneider. Their cult is still alive today in Franconia and in the diocese of Paderborn. Feast, July 8.