LORCH. — In the suburb of Enns, in Upper Austria, ancient Laureacum; around A.D. 190 a fort to protect the Roman bridge over the Enns and the river port on the Danube; under Caracalla the civilian settlement received the right of a city. In 304 St. Florian and companions suffered martyrdom there.
Around the year 400, as a result of continuous wars, the city was transferred within the perimeter of the fort and survived until the 9th century. It was then also the seat of a bishop; the Vita s. Severini of Eugippius names a Constantius (ch. 30) and mentions at least two churches (ibid. ch. 28). The Notitia dignitatum says that at L. were stationed the legio II Italica, the classis Laureacensis, the lanciarii Laureacenses, and that there was an arms factory there.
Recent excavations have established that near L. there existed two Christian cemeteries, a church of the Alpine type (rectangular hall, with an internal apse of the 6th century), and that the present cemetery church, St. Lawrence, occupies the site of the early Christian episcopal basilica. That L. had been the seat of an archbishopric (first archbishop: Maxentius of Celeia, end of the 3rd century), transferred in 739 to Passau, is a medieval invention, devised to obtain metropolitan rights for Passau (v. PASSAVIA).
Bibliography3 worksJ. Zeller, Les origines chrétiennes dans les provinces Danubiennes de l'Empire Romain, Paris 1918; E. Tomsk, Kirchenschichtste Österreichs,
BIBL.: J. Zeller, Les origines chrétiennes dans les provinces Danubiennes de l'Empire Romain, Paris 1918; E. Tomsk, Kirchenschichtste Österreichs, vol. I, Innsbruck-Vienna 1935, p. 36 ff.; Eugippius, Das Leben des hl. Severin, Linz 1947, passim (Latin text, German version and commentaries).
Lów, Giuseppe. “Lorch.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VII, col. 1532. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1951. https://azioneromana.com/article/lorch.
MLA
Lów, Giuseppe. “Lorch.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VII, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1951, col. 1532. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/lorch.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec7_lorch,
author = {Lów, Giuseppe},
title = {Lorch},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {VII},
pages = {1532},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1951},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/lorch}
}
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